/ARTS WEEKLY/ARGENTINA: Theatre Group Raises Awareness on ‘Disappeared’ Children

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 16 2003 (IPS) - Just three years after two prominent actors in Argentina brought to the stage the story of a young woman who had been illegally adopted after her parents were ”disappeared” during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, around 800 people are now involved in the ”Theatre for Identity” movement.

During each season of plays put on by ”Theatre for Identity”, the number of phone calls received by the offices of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an organisation of relatives of the victims of the dictatorship, increases to an average of seven a day.

The human rights group was founded 27 years ago by women seeking their grandchildren after their sons and daughters became victims of forced disappearance.

Their grandchildren were either born into captivity to political prisoners, or abducted as small children along with their parents, and many were stolen and illegally adopted by members of the armed forces.

The recent annulment of the amnesty laws that let members of the military who committed human rights abuses during the de facto regime off the hook and the consequent reopening of prosecutions has once again propelled the cases of the illegally adopted children of the ”disappeared” into the limelight.

The members of the ”Theatre for Identity” movement are aware that the winds of change sweeping through Argentina under centre-left President Néstor Kirchner will bring even greater support for their work, which began as a lonely effort in a hostile environment.

”Up to now, we were the artistic branch of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which is our mother organisation,” actress Susana Cart, a member of the governing commission of ”Theatre for Identity”, told IPS.

”But now we are an institution in and of ourselves, and we are discussing the possibility of registering as a separate non-governmental organisation with legal status.”

The adventure began in 2000, when well-known TV and film actors Daniel Fanego and Valentina Bassi put on the play ”A propósito de la Duda” (With Regards to the Doubt). None of the actors were paid for their work, nor were spectators charged admission to see the play.

Directed by Patricia Zangaro, the play explored the problems of identity faced by a young woman who had been stolen and illegally adopted as a baby.

”The idea was to put on two or three performances to help the Grandmothers in their search for their missing grandchildren. But the play continued to show to full-house audiences for a whole year, and 99 percent of the public consisted of people under 25, who generally do not go to plays, and especially not on Mondays,” said Cart.

Those involved in the initiative then decided to set up a 24-member commission that included actors, directors, playwrights, producers, set designers, sound technicians and other people from the world of theatre.

The name Theatre for Identity came from the title of the group’s 2001 season.

The first step was to invite people to submit scripts focusing on the dictatorship’s theft of the children of the ”disappeared”.

”When there is a group of young people who have doubts about their identity, it is the identity of society that is in doubt,” said Fanego, one of the theatre group’s founders.

Of the more than 150 scripts for plays received by the commission, 41 were selected.

The group then found 14 theatres where it could put on the plays on Monday nights, drawing an estimated total of 35,000 spectators in the first season.

Last year, the focus was expanded from the problems of identity faced by illegally adopted children to problems of identity in general.

Around 20 plays were performed in seven theatres, which were attended by a total audience of around 17,000. ”The idea was to show that the issue does not just involve a specific group of young people, but society as a whole,” said Cart.

This year, ”Theatre for Identity” also put on its plays in outlying neighbourhoods of the greater Buenos Aires, drawing around 8,000 theatre-goers in all. The shows in the capital alternate with performances in cities of the interior, like the seaside resort town of Mar del Plata in the southeast or Cordoba in central Argentina.

Play-writing workshops are also offered in which awareness-raising about issues of identity is carried out among the future writers. In addition, the group periodically issues calls for submissions of scripts.

The initiative brought immediate results. ”During the season when the plays are put on, calls by young people to the offices of the Grandmothers have increased 80 percent,” Estela Carlotto told IPS.

Carlotto is the president of the Grandmothers, who so far have found 72 of the 500 children – now young adults – that they began to look for in 1976.

The Grandmothers receive queries from many young people with doubts about their true identities, and help them delve into the details of their past, to find out if there is any point of contact with the lives of their disappeared children and grandchildren.

If there is any suspicion that the youngsters might have been illegally adopted during the years of the ”dirty war”, genetic testing is carried out to verify or discard that possibility.

Cart said the plays help people identify with the issue on a more emotional level. ”We help raise awareness, and we think our work has a great impact,” said the actress.

Carlotto said the plays ”give life to the need to find our grandchildren.” She herself still has hopes of finding her grandson among the young people who call the human rights group’s offices.

Her daughter, Laura Carlotto, was abducted by the security forces in 1976. After Estela’s desperate attempts to get her daughter back, she was finally handed her corpse – unlike most parents, who never saw their ”disappeared” loved ones again, either dead or alive.

Shortly afterwards, she found out from other political prisoners that her daughter had given birth to a baby boy and named him Guido, after his father. Carlotto’s grandson would be 27 today, and she suspects he may be living with a certain couple who allegedly stole him and changed his name.

In the 1990s, the Grandmothers got the courts to open cases against members of the military on charges of kidnapping and disappearance of minors, an offence that was not covered by the amnesty laws.

It gradually emerged that the dictatorship had a systematic plan of stealing the young children of political prisoners, who were often raised by members of the military or the police.

The Grandmothers thus continue to promote initiatives like ”Theatre for Identity”, while sitting by the phone and anxiously awaiting the next call.