Everyone I know is Montevideo is involved in teaching, in one way or another. In part this reflects the fact that most of my closest friends speak English, and if your English is good you can either make or supplement your living by teaching it. However, it also reflects another aspect of Uruguayan culture, which is a near pathological appetite for studying.
This studying never seems to stop. It is driven by the conviction that in order to improve one’s chances of success in a world where the gradations between rich and poor are extreme, the acquisition knowledge (of something, anything) is the most valuable tool available.
There is a downside to this attitude. It doesn’t lend itself to a particularly entrepreneurial culture. Being a student is a status of reduced responsibility: a process of preparation rather than action. I had an long discussion with Fernando, one of the actors in my play, about the seductiveness of thinking of oneself as an eternal student, when he talked about how much he still felt he had to learn.
However, Fernando’s story is instructive. He was raised in Libertad, a two-horse kind of town with a high street, a town square and little more. His parents run the oldest store in town, Los Buenos Amigos, and for a while he followed in the family footsteps, running his own shop, as do his brothers. Meanwhile, he participated in the local drama society, which has been running in Libertad for over thirty years. When I asked him what kind of thing they did, he said a bit of everything. This year the group, of which he is no longer a part, is working their way through the cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays.
One day, Fernando decided he’d had enough of Libertad. He shut up his shop for good and left for Montevideo. He enrolled in a drama school there. Now he earns at least part of his living from acting. In his eyes, the desire to progress as an actor is ineluctably connected to a desire to train, and to learn.
Besides her acting and working on the radio, Ana also teaches literature in high school. I asked her about her 5th form syllabus, which is she preparing now. Over the course of a year she will give classes based around five key texts. Apart from reading and working on the texts themselves, they will also explore the historical context within which the texts were formed. The five texts she’s doing this year are – a Greek tragedy, looking at the origins of theatre in the process; the Bible; The Divine Comedy; Don Quixote; and a Shakespeare. In the course of the year Ana will cover everything from the Romance of the Rose to Marlowe to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan bible. Next year, they move onto the moderns.
This studying never seems to stop. It is driven by the conviction that in order to improve one’s chances of success in a world where the gradations between rich and poor are extreme, the acquisition knowledge (of something, anything) is the most valuable tool available.
There is a downside to this attitude. It doesn’t lend itself to a particularly entrepreneurial culture. Being a student is a status of reduced responsibility: a process of preparation rather than action. I had an long discussion with Fernando, one of the actors in my play, about the seductiveness of thinking of oneself as an eternal student, when he talked about how much he still felt he had to learn.
However, Fernando’s story is instructive. He was raised in Libertad, a two-horse kind of town with a high street, a town square and little more. His parents run the oldest store in town, Los Buenos Amigos, and for a while he followed in the family footsteps, running his own shop, as do his brothers. Meanwhile, he participated in the local drama society, which has been running in Libertad for over thirty years. When I asked him what kind of thing they did, he said a bit of everything. This year the group, of which he is no longer a part, is working their way through the cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays.
One day, Fernando decided he’d had enough of Libertad. He shut up his shop for good and left for Montevideo. He enrolled in a drama school there. Now he earns at least part of his living from acting. In his eyes, the desire to progress as an actor is ineluctably connected to a desire to train, and to learn.
Besides her acting and working on the radio, Ana also teaches literature in high school. I asked her about her 5th form syllabus, which is she preparing now. Over the course of a year she will give classes based around five key texts. Apart from reading and working on the texts themselves, they will also explore the historical context within which the texts were formed. The five texts she’s doing this year are – a Greek tragedy, looking at the origins of theatre in the process; the Bible; The Divine Comedy; Don Quixote; and a Shakespeare. In the course of the year Ana will cover everything from the Romance of the Rose to Marlowe to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan bible. Next year, they move onto the moderns.
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