Life: Now That’s Entertainment!

“Life imitates art, more than art imitates life“.

The idea that life imitates art was not one I was musing over at the Alpine Chocolate Festival. It was the end of my parents first week during their visit to Argentina, and we’d opted to rent a car in order to see more of the province. After following me around Córdoba for a few days they were anxious to get out in the countryside before we confronted Buenos Aires the following week.

Two friends of mine had joined us that morning, and we’d successfully navigated our way out of the city to the small German style town of Villa General Belgrano. There, we met up with other friends and enjoyed a day of eating chocolate, drinking beer, and walking around in the mountain air.

A theatre production of “Singing in the Rain” (Cantando Bajo la Lluvia) was among the presentations offered during the festival, and while the other girls caught a bus back to Córdoba, my parents and I checked into our hotel room before going to see it. Earlier that day, we’d stopped at the B&B I’d stayed at with some friends in March. My stay at the Claire d’Lune was wonderful, and our host, Nanette, even more so. She still remembered me for this visit, and it was thanks to her connections we’d managed to land the room at the Edelweiss hotel.

“You better get this room now,” she told us seriously, after spending fifty minutes on the phone. “Everywhere else is booked up, and you don’t want to be laughed out-of-town.”

We checked in, and then made our way back down to the festival to watch the show. While I badgered my parents for a piece of chocolate cake, the junior high school clarinet players flirted with the boys sitting in front of us. My father raised his eyebrows.

“Is that the band?”

It was part of it. But then again, this was a community production. The live band consisted of musicians of all ages and experience, as did the theatre troupe. We still had hope for an entertaining show.

It was entertaining all right. But I didn’t consider that life did in fact imitate art during the show. I was too focused on not laughing.

The movie “Singing in the Rain,” is a classic of American cinema. It combines great songs and dancing with hilarious dialogue that still holds up today.

The problem with the Villa General Belgrano version was that everything that made it great was taken out: There was very little singing or dancing, and what dialogue there was didn’t help to string together the scenes the scriptwriter chose. Without having seen the movie beforehand, the play would’ve been completely incomprehensible.

At first, my parents and I came up with a logical explanation: In Argentina, the movie must be well-known. That theory held up until we took a good look around us. More than half the audience left during the first scene, and those that were left looked more than a little confused. Then, several irrational decisions besides the butchering of the script came to light. These included the casting a seventy-five year old woman for the role of a twenty year old, or having the love interest drop out until the final scene (never happened in the movie). There was also the poor decision to make a male character female, which brought the play down even more.

The straw that finally broke the camel’s back (or, in terms of other “cultural experiences,” the tenth kid on the elephant at the Mexican circus) was the addition of unnecessary musical numbers that never happened. Instead of completely exposing the cheating lip synching antagonist (played by the seventy-five year old) as a fake, the characters all mused about life. It wasn’t fame they wanted; really, they just wanted to sing and act.

At that moment, life imitated art, because directly after that charming addition the older woman broke into her own version of the song “Singing in the Rain.” Everything became clear. Between gasping for air and crying with laughter on our way back to the hotel, my parents and I pieced the story together.

The theatre troupe, directed by the older woman, was subject to her whims. She’d probably wanted to play the role of Lina Lamont, the antagonist, ever since she’d seen the movie, but never had the chance.

“Someone saw that movie while sick, and then had a fever dream,” my father said, shaking his head, while my mother and I doubled over with laughter. “That is the only way to explain that script.”

Owing to the theatre pecking order, the casting was a lot skewed. That’s why, with the exception of the male lead, no one was properly cast.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that all art has to be serious. I am, after all, the one who chose to see a vampire musical in Buenos Aires the next week (which my ever patient father accompanied me to as well.) But if it’s meant to be entertaining, please make sure the audience is laughing with the actors, and not at theinam.

Otherwise, life will be imitating art. Literally—my parents and I have been singing “Cantando Bajo la Lluvia” ever since.