Spregelburd’s Stubbornness

Abstract

In recent years I have almost religiously gone to see something by or featuring Rafael Spregelburd whenever I visit Argentina, on stage or screen. On my last trip, this March, alongside two films(Florencia Percia’s debut Cetáceos and Lucrecia Martel’s historical drama Zama) and a talk, in conversation with the academic Gabriel Guz, it was his ambitious play La terquedad (Stubbornness). Spregelburd is widely acknowledged as one of Argentina’s most significant contemporary dramatists. His work appears regularly on European festival stages, and has won prizes worldwide. He has translated Harold Pinter, Sarah Kane, and other British playwrights for performance in Spanish. Yet it is a number of years now since The Argentine Moment appeared at London’s Royal Court, and his namewill hardly be familiar to British readers. Some may recognise him as a screen actor, playing the proverbially tortured political artist, gruff husband to the eponymous heroine, and love rival to SamHuntington’s lead in Nico Casavecchia’s Finding Sofia (2016).