Hear
Is called Juan Arana and is the only child of Marzenka Novak and Hugo Arana. He is also an actor and although he has worked behind the scenes for many years, he recently In 2014 he was encouraged to show his art. Today she stars in a play in the independent theater circuit, has two projects for microtheater and is re-releasing the play. Branch, in September. In dialogue with THE NATION, “Juano” Arana, as he likes to be called, remembers his father – who died during the pandemic in 2020 – and recognizes that he has not yet been able to grieve. He also says that he inherited a mystical restlessness from his mother, reflects on the actor’s craft and ventures a hypothesis about why he did not act before.
Today his days pass in the house that until a few years ago he shared with his father. and is dedicated to theater. “I am performing on Sundays, at 7 p.m., in a series called Teatro Breve 4×1, at the Teatro Cara a Cara in Villa del Parque and it is like going home, a anti-sunday beautiful. The work I do is called Guardians of the homeland and they are all written by Carlos La Casa, with whom I worked on Branch, a comedy with which we return because it was great. It’s very funny and won the Orsai award. In July I return to Microteatro with a work that I already did, it is called genital intelligence and we do it with María Zubiri, and Gimena Riestra writes and directs it. In September I am also going to do another work by Jorgelina Vera, it is called Sex on the bridge and Víctor Laplace directs us.”
-Have you always had a continuity of work or do you need to do something else to live?
-In general I have continuity, but I am thinking of having another kiosk soon… (Laughter). I need it. I worked a lot in commercial theater, but under the stage. I started when I was 20, more or less, as a prop man, I was a production assistant, director, stage manager. I spent seven years in Knock Knock as a stage assistant, until the 2020 quarantine.
-Did you not dare to act?
-I had done things at school, many short films, but the first time I acted was when I grew up, in 2014, in a version of Romeo and Juliet which Virginia Lago directed, and we were all children of actors and actresses. That was the first time I did professional theater as an actor.
-And because?
-What do I know! Because it didn’t happen, because I didn’t feel like it… Yes, I made short films all my life. I remember when I was 11 years old that my dad would film me and my little friends and we would make stories and have a lot of fun. I also later grabbed the camera and started directing.
-For you it was something natural because both of your parents were actors…
-Yes of course. I grew up on television sets and between legs, in theaters. I remember a lot of a moment I lived and it was a stroke of magic. I would have been about 5 years old when my mother did a musical by Pepe Cibrián with Ana María Campoy that was called The sweet girls. I was with the construction engineer who had to activate the smoke machine before my mother came on stage to sing a song. That day she told me to help him and I pressed the button to make smoke come out and while she was spying between her legs, she saw my mother’s back, with the lights… It was magical. Something struck me at that moment. When I finished school I studied film, but my range of interests is wide and I read a lot.
-And what are those interests?
-I like philosophy, history, the esoteric. I have a mystical side which, it seems to me, I inherited from my mother who was Polish. He came to Buenos Aires when he was 4 years old and in old Europe ghost stories are more common. I am interested in the spiritual world, I do not belong to any religion, but I believe in higher intelligences. It is also a topic that amuses me. I like to meditate too.
-What did you inherit from your parents?
-From my mother, the musical ear. I had several bands. And my dad was more from the neighborhood, a well-read guy, but from the university down the street. He also had a mystical side. They were a beautiful couple, 47 years together and they adored each other. They were very different and also complementary. They left me the most beautiful inheritance because they were very loved and respected.
-Does being the son of actors and following the same path as them have more cons than pros?
-There is everything, I think. First you have to know what you want, look for it and take charge. It also depends on whose son you are… (laughs). I’ve only recently been on stage, although I’ve been working in theater for many years. Maybe there was something that didn’t call me, or I didn’t feel ready, or I felt like I had a problem precisely because I was the son of… I didn’t look for it too much and when it happened it was because Virginia Lago called us to do this play with all the children of actors. I didn’t go to a casting, it just happened. The following year I did a program on PakaPaka, beautiful. I don’t have a representative… Maybe I should.
-Did you have the opportunity to do fiction?
-I did the odd bit in cinema, in a film by Tita Merello that Teresa Costantini directed. And on television too. I lack a certain hunger, maybe I need to activate, hire a representative. The audiovisual industry is complicated.
-And what did your parents tell you?
-They loved that I worked in theater, but they let me do my own thing. They were very permissive parents.
-Did you live with your dad?
-Yes, I lived with him until the end and I am still in the house of San Cristóbal. It’s a chorizo house and in the back they had built a little house for me to live in, the old way… (laughs). In quarantine we were locked up together and he died at the worst moment, in October 2020. My dad had heart surgery in 2013 and had not been well for some time. One day I found him lying on the floor and the next day, he was better, but he didn’t remember anything. I hospitalized him and after 15 days he died. I couldn’t see him again, hug him, say goodbyealthough we spoke every day on the phone or on video calls.
-Couldn’t you grieve?
-No, I couldn’t grieve like I did with my mother. I’m just starting to let go of certain things. There was no ritual, there was no wake, there was nothing. I couldn’t even see it, so there are things I haven’t closed yet. I was very bad because the quarantine continued, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t say goodbye to my father. I thank Fede Marrale and Carlos La Casa who threw ropes at me because I was paralyzed. With Fede we did a beautiful job on Public Television, directing actors in a fiction. She helped me financially and mentally. And Carlos La Casa called me to join the work Branch.
-And you started to get ahead…
-That’s the truth. In the middle, I also broke up. 2020 was the worst year of my existence. It was too much. I am an only child, the three of us were very close and losing my dad in that way and in that context was difficult. It killed me to know it alone on a stretcher. Mom died in 2011, aged 66.. She had diabetes and had two strokes. I was a very happy child, a happy teenager and I am a happy guy, beyond that I missed them a lot. My parents were two spectacular people, transparent, charming, good people. They had their things, their fears, but they were two divine ones. When my mom died, I told my dad: “My best friend died.” Because that’s how I felt and the same thing happened to me with my dad.
-How did you experience your father’s peak of fame?
-They always stopped him on the street to greet him and my chest swelled. A lot of pride. I also remember that when I was little, one time a mob of people came over us and my dad let me go for a moment to sign an autograph and I felt terrified. But it didn’t traumatize me or anything and it only happened that one time.
-Many believe that Hugo was Facundo Arana’s father. Have they ever asked you if they are brothers?
-Until recently they asked me if he was my brother. They worked on good neighbours and they unintentionally fueled the myth because they called themselves father and son, for fun… (laughs). Besides, mom was blonde and had blue eyes like Facundo, so she could be.
-Have you ever worked with your parents?
-With dad I worked on my first play as a prop, a comedy called more than friends. And we went back to work on one of the last things he did because he directed me at Microteatro in the summer of 2020. The experience was very nice, both of them were very professional when it came to working. And when he did that cycle viral stories in quarantineI helped him with the telephone, the lights, I arranged everything with the directors. He said goodbye with that: it was the last thing he did. We had a beautiful relationship, although from time to time we shouted at each other like good Basques… Also, the two actors, so everything was a little overacted, to highlight the vice. With my mother, the same, and then everything ended in a hug.
-Why do they call you Juano?
-Because if you say Juan Arana often it seems like you were saying Juana Rana. I am Juan Gonzalo Arana. On my Instagram profile I put Juano Arana and it stuck. I like it as a stage name.
-Do you have other passions?
-I like to sing… I had bands and I would like to go back. While I sing in the shower and out of the shower… (laughs). And I read a lot too.
