Birthday candles and the new theater in Lima

“It has been strong resistance. The theaters are fuller today,” says director and playwright Mikhail Page about what the 2023 season was like and the bets that the theaters made. As for traditional theaters, the Teatro Marsano followed what Osvaldo Cattone had done and had enormous success with Brujas, the comedy that brought together Yvonne Frayssinet, Pilar Brescia, Camucha Negrete, Teddy Guzmán and Martha Figueroa. “I have the idea that young people come to see what those five they talk about have,” Guzmán responded to us when they reached 22,000 spectators.

Outside the districts that form the so-called more commercial theater circuit, Birthday Candles with Erika Villalobos in the lead role premiered at the Ricardo Blume Theater in Jesús María. The play not only sold out performances, but was one of the best of the year and confirmed its revival for February 22. “We had thought a lot about making it and the effect it was going to have on the public, we had the idea that it was going to be something big and it actually was, but I could say that it exceeded our expectations,” says Page, its director.

During the season, Pold Gastelo told us that, regardless of the media impact that Villalobos's leading role meant, that could not make a play maintain a full-house season. “Yes, and it was something that surprised us,” adds Page. “It is a family work, there is a very strong bond with loved ones. People have seen it two or three times, they wanted their relatives to see it. You can do a good pre-sale, with enough marketing so that they see the work at least in the first weeks, but in the fourth week the marketing ends up being the public's reaction.”

Written by Noah Haidle, it is a journey through the five generations of a family. “It seems to me that both a contemporary work and a classic should speak about what we are experiencing right now. I think this work is important, even more so after a pandemic. There are many people who have not been able to say goodbye to their loved ones, even for me it is a kind of farewell and a kind of revaluation of life… someone who leaves, but always stays. We can see our own family in the characters and I think it is impossible not to have that identification.”

The director tells us that they will take the play to Trujillo and it is very likely that it will continue every year in Lima in the same theater. “People are going to cry, but also laugh, because it has a comedic tone that I think is necessary. It is acceptance, because we can do nothing but enjoy the people around us.”