Hanna Schygulla and Andrea Bonelli revive Borges in an intimate theatrical tribute.

The time difference, the respective cold snaps (here) and heat waves (there), the issue of languages—of translating, of finding the right word—are not anecdotal for Hanna. Hanna is Hanna Schygulla, the great actress, the muse of Fassbinder and European cinema, the curious and inexhaustible manager of cultural projects and bridges. But she is also someone who is active and attentive to the direction the world is heading, like the direct criticism she made of far-right leaders earlier this year: "We have the worst possible people in charge of the world."

Now she's on the other end of the phone line from Berlin; it's midnight there, and she responds to the greeting in a whispered but clear Spanish. She says she's fine, "even though you can barely breathe, and that's distressing. That's why I say fine, automatically." Thus, from the beginning, this conversation with Revista Ñ , whose main motivation is the return of her play Borges y yo to the local stage, will be guided by this honest, yet raw, voice, if the circumstances so require: Hanna doesn't seem to have the time or inclination to hold anything back. Also participating in this nighttime conversation is Andrea Bonelli , the protagonist and co-creator with Hanna of the local version of the play, which was created more than 20 years ago as a tribute by the Polish-German actress to Borges and tango.

There's a charm to having a conversation without cameras, a little tentatively: listening to Schygulla 's halting voice, who speaks Spanish fluently, yet worries about whether he's using the correct meaning of a word. "Is it ' warming '? We've always been aware of what's happening with the climate, but we've never had these temperatures. And people my age are very affected."

Thus, Schygulla appears connected and committed to the present. Active as an actor, she portrayed the charming role of Martha Von Kurtzroc in Poor Creatures (by Greek author Yorgos Lanthimos) in 2023. Now, in a reflective tone, she laments the deadly hyperpresence of war, floods, and evacuees, and the use of the cultural budget to purchase weapons. "These are dark times, and people have to learn to help each other in these extreme situations."

Schygulla says he prefers to get his news from the radio—"his companion"—rather than from television. He's surprised by how children seem to "come prepared" for new technologies, which he considers "a type of communication that, boom, boom... is destroying all words." And although exhaustion often overcomes him, he confesses that he still wants to "live a little longer." In fact, death will come up a couple of times in the conversation, as something he doesn't know how to laugh about, despite having known cultures like the Mexican, which "have a day for it, they have toys with skulls, parties, a whole space of freedom that you take when you laugh at death." This is also true in Borges's own laughter.

In Borges and I. Memory of a Future Friend , the show Schygulla imagined for herself more than 20 years ago returns to the stage . It's a selection of short stories and a series of tangos, with which the artist pays homage to Jorge Luis Borges. Now, the interpretation—of texts and tangos—is led by Andrea Bonelli . During the call, one understands and feels why both call it a "gift from one actress to another": the work not only gave rise to an artistic exchange, but also to a friendship. "I remember being in Paris when Hanna offered me the project," Bonelli comments. "We were just coming out of the pandemic; Hanna was very sad and worried."

"It gave me great pleasure, since I can't stand on stage for an hour, to hand over the play to Andrea. In fact, what's happening between Andrea and me is a work of recycling, in the cultural sense: we know that the world, if it doesn't have a future, it's because it can't renew and recycle itself anymore." It wasn't by chance, either, that Schygulla set his sights on the Argentine actress: "It was a way for this play to return to its place of origin."

But Schygulla also acknowledges a long-standing tendency of hers to love Latin American culture: it was a Cuban woman who first introduced her to Borges. The encounter with the Argentine writer, despite not understanding the language at the time, had a profound impact on her. "I had formed a very close friendship with the Cuban Alicia Bustamante, a great artist, director, actress, and acting coach—an incredibly talented woman. She dreamed of creating a work that united song, music, words, and dance." And it's safe to say that Schygulla realizes some of that dream in this production, which traverses the languages of theater, literature, music, and the screen. "My dream was to convey many things at once, a work in which I could express everything I had inhaled throughout my life. What had left its mark on me and how. That's how the show I called Borges, Tango, and I was born."

Bonelli had the opportunity to perform the work in Spain with the original musicians who performed with Hanna at the time: the Germans Peter Ludwig, who is also the composer of the music, and Peter Wobke, cellist. "The two experiences with the two groups are extremely interesting, and very enriching for me, artistically. In the Buenos Aires production, although the work remains the same, Shino Ohnaga, on piano, and Cristina Titi Chiappero, on cello, in addition to being extraordinary musicians, are women, and that really gave us an energy and something to the show that I hadn't planned for, but that undoubtedly, yes, I feel, and I really like what happens to me and what happens with us there on stage."

In this production, Hanna's own voice is also added, reading the story "Ulrika" in German through screens. Literally and metaphorically wearing Hanna's clothes "gives me pride, protection, and happiness," says the Argentinian. A bridge of friendship between two women leads Schygulla to recall another "turn in life," when she met Cipe Lincovsky, "who kindly offered me her house; she had a piano, because I needed some work. Cipe and (the Cuban) Alicia knew each other; I didn't think one day I'd meet her too! Then, Cipe said, 'It's just that I'm very big,' in the double sense of being very old," she says, laughing, a graceful way of speaking that she's repeated ever since.

Schygulla confesses that, for someone like her, born in 1943, who understood the role of resistance very early in her life, the signs of today's world—wars, investment in weapons, young men returning to military service—are truly madness, a nightmare. Even so, she remains active and, far from giving up, would like to establish a prize "for works that, while very aware of the fragile state of the entire world, can, through the energy of their creativity, help us not lose the joy of living. The solution to problems can never be to close our eyes."

There are some works in which what is said on stage is especially intertwined—illuminated, gaining meaning—with their productions, and even with the story of their productions. This seems to be the case with Borges and I, the work created by Polish-German actress and director Hanna Schygulla —muse and iconic face of RM Fassbinder's films—for which she herself starred, in 2003, in German and French.

Captured by Borges's worlds, their atmospheres, themes, and mysteries, Schygulla then imagined a show in which Borges's stories could converse with certain tangos, certain music. Shygulla had already explored this genre, which draws on theater, musicals, recitals, cabaret, and shows offered in Buenos Aires, with tributes to Jean-Marie Sénia and Louise Brooks: through a repertoire of texts or songs, a personal journey as a tribute to an author, to an era.

In 2022, Schygulla offered Andrea Bonelli , whom she had known for some time, the lead role in the play. For her, it was a chance to repurpose the show, but it was also a way for the play to return to its place of origin. In this challenging role, Bonelli not only had to dress in the clothes of the great Hanna, but also reappropriate Borgesian stories and select typical tangos. What for Schygulla was "the other," a mystery to be unraveled, in Bonelli's hands would take on a new form of expressing "our own."

It's no small challenge to figure out how to deliver these texts, how to sing these tangos. In the show, after a spectral appearance by Hanna on screen, welcoming everyone to her work, we see a suited Bonelli take the stage—that stop that has a touch of handsomeness, but also of someone demanding attention. Thus begins the circular journey, back and forth, from texts to singing, from tangos to instrumental music, and back to stories, across symbolic bridges. On stage, Bonelli is accompanied by two young performers: pianist Shino Ohnaga and cellist Cristina Titi Chiappero, who stand out for their wonderful interpretations, but also for their way of subtly participating—and with a touch of humor—in the scene.

From "The End" to "The Captive," from "The Last Hangover" to "The Day You Love Me," from "The Corn" to "Someone Tells the Tango," the Borges poem set to music by Piazzolla, Bonelli's voice weaves together characters, stories, and rhymes. Like layers accumulating meaning, Bonelli adds personal notes and anecdotes, surprising with singing that's both elegant and canyengue; she will wear the burgundy silk dress that Hanna herself had worn in her production, which will be replicated from the front and side on cameras and screens.

Towards the end, Schygulla and Bonelli overlap their voices in the reading of "Ulrica," a story that could offer a key to the theatrical experience created by the German. Borges and I. Memories of a Future Friend turns out to be a climactic experience, which manages to transport the spectator for just over an hour to the imaginary universe recreated by Shygulla , so foreign to her, and yet virtuously honored.

* Borges and I. Memories of a Future Friend is presented on Sundays at 8 p.m. at Hasta Trilce, Maza 177.