Kive Staiff: key manager of the history of the Argentine scene

There is no way to think, badyze, shred Argentinean scenic production last 50 years without paying attention to the contribution of Kive Staiff. And we must recognize that in this path where the names of playwrights, actors, choreographers, directors, dancers and puppeteers, as well as certain collective events, are articulated, he must be the only person not directly related to the artistic production. at the top of a scene

Kive Staiff (Akiva, according to his DNI) was, and will continue to be, synonymous with the San Martín Theater. He imposed the mark of management when, in 1970, few used this term. He died yesterday, at 20:30, from a cardiorespiratory arrest. Yesterday, in the Martin Coronado Room of this theater that he directed for nearly 30 years, a work by Matías Feldman called
The hypertext link . At intermission, many people present heard about the news and the work, several people present said that they were acquiring a lot of other meanings, weaving networks as a result of the news. It is impossible not to remember these international shows that he has programmed in this monumental space whose traces are in the DNA of the local scene.

Man of details, foresight, had clarified to his wife, the actress María Comesaña, who would not admit being veiled in the room. In fact, it did not happen yesterday. Neither today's funeral procession will pbad through the place it has occupied during two military governments and various democratic governments because Corrientes Avenue, at San Martin's height, is in the middle of the game and chaos imposes its logic.

He has two daughters: Eliana and Debora. Deby, so we all know this remarkable manager, writes on his Facebook wall: "He was very Jewish … but also very atheist." His first job was to sell pills at Constitución station to buy the books of the newly arrived school. He never knew what it was like to live without work, for him no work was unworthy, he was unworthy not to have it, he lived intensely, as he wanted, doing what he wanted, what he liked, what he liked. He was incisive as a critic, feared and hated. They called him Mephistopheles and meanwhile he saved the lives of many actors in the lead years. His best friend was his childhood horse, the one with whom he was going from colony to city correspondence in his homeland Between Rios, he wanted to be a football player, he came to River Fifth, the club of his loves, and because of a knee problem he changed the boots for the books of Bernard Shaw, his idols were Perdernera, Pipo Rossi, S Hakespeare, Distéfano and Brecht. He wanted to become an orchestra conductor, but he ended up directing a theater. It was a public man who did not like to appear. This has been and will continue to be Kive Staiff, my old man. "

Born in October 1927 in Escriña, a town of Entre Ríos, his father was born in Ukraine, then owned by Tsarist Russia.Its first generation Argentine, his world was the harvest, the horses, the field free, being young his family first settled at Villa Crespo then in other neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.At 11 years old, he sold what he could in the Corso de la Avenida from May he was received as a commercial expert and then enrolled in economics, at that time he was also a right wing, reading was his other pbadion, reading Bernard Shaw helped him organize his thoughts. "How can you be personally happy in a He is worried about what he understood to be the direct predecessor of Bertolt Brecht.

He got tired of the economy barely a year old, and because of his accounting work he went to meet Cecilio Madanes at the time Madanes headed the Caminito Theater , from La Boca. Thus, little by little, he went from the administrative direction of this cooperative to journalism, to theatrical criticism. In 1964, he founded the magazine
Theater XX . In 1974, he was already in the writing of
The Opinión . Mayor Saturnino Montero Ruiz, during the presidency of General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, offered him the address of San Martín Theater. He soon programmed
The Caucasian Chalk Circle was the first time that a Brecht text was created in an Argentine public theater. It lasted a year and a half. Another military government, that of the dictatorship, called him again in 1976. He accepted. He was the director of the hall for all those years of lead in a besieged city. At the time, San Martin was spoken of as an island. The opening in 1979 of the hall hall for countless shows will have to be understood as both an artistic and political gesture.

The age of gold

The government of Raúl Alfonsín confirmed him in his duties. It is Ernesto Sabato who called on behalf of the president to ask him to continue to run the largest public theater in the country. It was at this time that the big names of the world scene arrived: Tadeusz Kantor, Marcel Marceau, Lionel Hampton, Susanne Linke, Kazuo Ohno, Philip Genty, Lluis Pascual, Mummenschanz, Foolsfires, Kabuki, Theater of Complicity, Salvador Távora or Dario Fo, with Catholic groups breaking the glbad of the facade of the room. Names that have left such an imprint on the local scene and in the imagination of the citizen who, during all these decades, have not returned to produce a similar effect in a public theater of Buenos Aires. Everything was produced in the rodeo Martín Coronado Jaime Kogan
Galileo Galilei in functions in which the public entered a state of collective reflection, while in the room Cunill Cabanellas, Ricardo Bartís debuted
Argentina postcards and in the Casacuberta Alfredo Alcón played in a
Hamlet who challenged the audience. At that time the Puppeteers Group and the Contemporary Dance Group (Ballet) were created, with a stable cast with characters such as Elena Tasisto, Alicia Berdaxagar, Horacio Peña, Ingrid Pelicorri, Roberto Carnaghi and Alberto Segado, among others ; Sara Facio's photo gallery and, as always, the legendary Leopoldo Lugones cinema. During this emblematic period, the Casacuberta had functions from Tuesday to Sunday. In the Cunill a theatrical laboratory was opened to the public led by Lorenzo Quinteros. There were lectures by international artists. The San Martín Theater in all its splendor.

With the arrival of the Mennemism, Kive Staiff, a tireless worker, went through other places of public management (he was in charge of Cultural Affairs at the Chancellery and Teatro Colón both unnoticed) and private (Banco Patricios Foundation). In 1998, under the administration of Fernando de la Rúa as head of government, he returned to the management of San Martín, which, over time, became the theatrical complex of Buenos Aires (body that brings San Martín, De la Ribera and Sarmiento). That was until 2010, during the management of Macrismo, who had also reconfirmed in his position.

He was admired and feared. When he approached to see a rehearsal before the first, everyone trembled. The political power knew that when summoned, it solved the management. "The house was in order," Alfonsín reportedly said. Over time, his conservative proposals have lost the resonance, impact, and transcendence that he had generated in the eighties. It is also true that society was different. During his last years at the head of the Complex, he programmed his seven rooms. He has written essays and is also devoted to the production of private works.

He was dismissed from public office with honors, with awards, with appropriate applause. When, in May of last year, the Teatro San Martín reopened, he was in the audience of Martín Coronado. He deserved a tribute, but unfortunately it did not happen.

It is impossible to refer to this emblematic theater of the city without thinking of this lúcido man, cantankerous, intelligent, visionary. The new generations of stage artists may not know it, but surely they are formed by creators whom this atheistic Jewish man has appealed to them as spectators.

"I would like the San Martin to take the flag of activism so that the theater becomes an Argentine necessity, so that someone can knock on the doors of this building to demand:" I want to see theater, I want to participate in a theatrical performance […] because without the theater I will die "», This gentleman said in a report in 1986 when the San Martin had his own publication, when the Alvear Theater was with functions.

Sound pbadage through San Martín

Continuity in Management

He was director of the hall between 1971 and 1973, 1976 and 1989, and 1998 and 2010. It is, throughout two military governments (Lanusse and dictatorship) and during the efforts of Alfonsín, the Alliance and Macrismo.

His Golden Age

In the middle of the Alfonsinist source he programmed texts of Aida Bortnik and Tito Cossa, forbidden writers, as well as the presence of world-famous figures, such as Kazuo Ohno, Tadeusz Kantor and Philippe Genty.

Expanding Theater

During his tenure, he added the Cunill Cabanellas Room, the Photo Gallery, and the Central Performance Room; and created three stable bodies: theater (no longer exists), puppetry and contemporary dance (current ballet) with their respective workshops.