Pepe Soriano
Encyclopedia
Life and work
Soriano was born and raised in Buenos AiresBuenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. Enrolling at the prestigious University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
Law School, he entered one of the university's numerous theatre groups and, leaving law school to devote himself to the theatre, he produced his first work, El chaleco encantado ("The Enchanted Sweater") in 1950, among four other works he completed and staged while in school. Soriano debuted professionally in a production of A Midsummernight's Dream at the renowned Colón Theatre, in 1953.
Debuting in television in 1954, Soriano soon starred in leading roles in Argentine premieres of Paddy Chayefsky
Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....
's The Tenth Man Marcel Achard
Marcel Achard
Marcel Achard was a French playwright and screenwriter whose popular sentimental comedies maintained his position as a highly-recognizable name in his country's theatrical and literary circles for five decades...
's Voulez-vous jouer avec moi? ("Would You Like to Play with Me?"), Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's Ah, Wilderness!
Ah, Wilderness!
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 2 October 1933.-Plot summary:...
and Carlos Gorostiza
Carlos Gorostiza
Carlos Gorostiza is a prominent Argentine playwright, theatre director and novelist.-Life and work:Carlos Gorostiza was born to Basque Argentine parents in the upscale Buenos Aires borough of Palermo...
's adaptation of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story". He committed suicide at age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.-Early life:...
's Rashomon
Rashomon (play)
Though Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon is the most famous instance, Akutagawa's stories have also been adapted for the stage.- Source material :...
. These performances earned Soriano the "Martin Fierro" and "Cóndor del Plata" Prizes in 1964, two of the most coveted in Argentine entertainment. Having accepted occasional supporting roles in Argentine cinema, he was cast as the lead in Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid is an Argentine film director and screenwriter.He started his professional career as an actor, Puppeteer and stage photographer in the 1960s then switched to film studies at the Association of Short Film Directors.He turned director and screenwriter in 1968 and has directed...
's production of Roberto Cossa
Roberto Cossa
Roberto Cossa is a prominent Argentine playwright and theatre director.-Life and work:Roberto Cossa was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in the quiet residential borough of Villa del Parque. He first performed in theatre at the age of 17 and, in 1957, he and friends founded the San...
's tragedy, Tute Cabrero (1968) and in Raúl de la Torre
Raúl de la Torre
Raúl de la Torre was an Argentine film director screenwriter and film producer.He was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for the film Pobre mariposa....
's character study, Juan Lamaglia y Sra. ("Mr. and Mrs. Juan Lamaglia," 1970).
David Viñas
David Viñas was an Argentine dramatist, critic, and novelist.-Life and career:Viñas grew up in Buenos Aires, and enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires, becoming head of the student organization Federación Universitaria de Buenos Aires...
' play, Lisandro (1971), he received plaudits for his portrayal of Senator Lisandro de la Torre
Lisandro de la Torre
Lisandro de la Torre was an Argentine politician, born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe.De la Torre became a lawyer in 1890. His thesis about municipalities and communes, as well as other works of his, gave rise to the idea of municipal autonomy in Argentina, which was included in the Argentine...
, a fiery muck-raker remembered for his opposition to the excessive influence landowners exercised over government in the 1930s. Following a return to democracy
Argentine general election, March 1973
The first Argentine general election of 1973 was held on 11 March. Voters chose both the President and their legislators and with a turnout of 85.5%, it produced the following results:-President:...
in 1973, Soriano was cast as Schultz in Osvaldo Bayer
Osvaldo Bayer
Osvaldo Bayer is a journalist and scriptwriter. He lives in Buenos Aires, and in Linz Am Rhine, Germany, where he went into exile during the "National Reorganization Process" dictatorship ....
's La Patagonia rebelde ("Rebellion in Patagonia," 1974). The portrayal of the brutal repression of a 1922 sheep ranch workers' strike was made with the assistance of the progressive new Governor of Santa Cruz Province, Jorge Cepernic
Jorge Cepernic
Jorge Cepernic was an Argentine politician and Governor of Santa Cruz Province between 1973 and 1974.In 1974, during the Isabel Martínez de Perón office, he was removed from office and then five years inmate in the Magdalena jail. Afterwards he was prisoner with his family in his farm nearby El...
, and resulted in serious problems for both Cepernic and many of those involved in the film - including Soriano, who left for Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1977.
Anxious to improve their tarnished international image, the new military regime
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
enlisted the relatively moderate General Roberto Viola to persuade exiled artists to return, which some, including Soriano, did. He was cast in the title role by Director Héctor Olivera
Héctor Olivera
Héctor Olivera is a film director, producer and screenwriter.He works mainly in the cinema of Argentina, but has contributed to numerous films in the United States.-Biography:...
's film version of Roberto Cossa
Roberto Cossa
Roberto Cossa is a prominent Argentine playwright and theatre director.-Life and work:Roberto Cossa was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and raised in the quiet residential borough of Villa del Parque. He first performed in theatre at the age of 17 and, in 1957, he and friends founded the San...
's grotesque play, La nona ("Granma," 1979). The slow pace of liberalization in the dictatorship's policy towards the arts pushed artists led by playwrights Osvaldo Dragún
Osvaldo Dragún
Osvaldo Dragún was a prominent Argentine playwright and theatre director.-Life and work:Osvaldo Dragún was born in Colonia Berro, a Jewish agricultural settlement in Entre Ríos Province, Argentina. After his father's linseed farm suffered from recurrent locust problems, the family left the...
and Carlos Gorostiza to create an Argentine Open Theatre
Argentine Open Theatre
The Argentine Open Theatre was an independent theatre company in Buenos Aires, Argentina.-Origins:The theatre in Argentina had developed alongside the nation's emergence as a modern economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
movement in 1980, to which Soriano was one of the first and best-known adherents. Their July 28, 1981, maiden festival was a success marred by the fire bombing of their Picadero Theatre a week later (an unsolved mystery to this day).
A return to democracy
Argentine general election, 1983
The Argentine general election of 1983 was held on 30 October and marked the return of Democracy after the 1976's dictatorship self-known as National Reorganization Process...
in 1983 allowed Argentine artists to create works critical of the climate of abuses
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
prevalent during the preceding dictatorship and Soriano was cast as the lead in Mercedes Frutos' 1984 film version of Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Adolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, and translator. He was a friend and collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote what many consider one of the best pieces of fantastic fiction, the novella The Invention of Morel.-Biography:Adolfo Bioy...
' Otra esperanza ("Another Hope"), a horror narrative set in a factory with secrets - a timely metaphor for much of the repression that had targeted industrial workers. Soriano reprised his role of Senator Lisandro de la Torre
Lisandro de la Torre
Lisandro de la Torre was an Argentine politician, born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe.De la Torre became a lawyer in 1890. His thesis about municipalities and communes, as well as other works of his, gave rise to the idea of municipal autonomy in Argentina, which was included in the Argentine...
in Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid is an Argentine film director and screenwriter.He started his professional career as an actor, Puppeteer and stage photographer in the 1960s then switched to film studies at the Association of Short Film Directors.He turned director and screenwriter in 1968 and has directed...
's Asesinato en el senado de la nación
Asesinato en el Senado de la Nación
Asesinato en el senado de la nación is a 1984 Argentine historical crime drama film directed by Juan José Jusid and written by Carlos Somigliana. The film starred José Soriano, Miguel Ángel Solá and Oscar Martínez and premiered on 13 September 1984 in Buenos Aires...
("An Assassination in the Senate," 1984), a historical drama on the 1935 attempted murder of the reformist senator.
Soriano worked in the theatre less in subsequent years, continuing to accept leading roles in film and on Argentine television. He also starred in Spanish television
Spanish television
Spanish television may refer to:*Television in Spain*Televisión Española, the national state-owned public-service television broadcaster in Spain....
and was featured for months in Farmacia de guardia ("24-Hour Pharmacy"), among the highest-rated Spanish comedies of the 1990s. His grandfatherly appeal was in demand for Argentine period piece
Period piece
-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...
s such as Raúl de la Torre
Raúl de la Torre
Raúl de la Torre was an Argentine film director screenwriter and film producer.He was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for the film Pobre mariposa....
's Funes, un gran amor ("Funes, a Great Love," 1993) and Héctor Olivera
Héctor Olivera
Héctor Olivera is a film director, producer and screenwriter.He works mainly in the cinema of Argentina, but has contributed to numerous films in the United States.-Biography:...
's Una sombra ya pronto serás ("A Shadow, You Shall Soon Be," 1994). A similarly bucolic backdrop set the stage for his role as a dying idealist in Diego Arsuaga's El último tren
El último tren
El último tren is a 2002 Uruguayan and Argentine, comedy drama film, directed by Diego Arsuaga, and written by Arsuaga, Fernando León de Aranoa, and Beda Docampo Feijóo...
("The Last Train," 2002), an Uruguayan film
Cinema of Uruguay
The Cinema of Uruguay has a role in the Culture of Uruguay. The industry has many actors and directors that made the Uruguayan cinema a part of Latin American cinema.-The early days:...
indicting unpatriotic business deals. Soraino has also recently turned to his Jewish roots in theatre works such as Jeff Baron
Jeff Baron
Jeff Baron is an American playwright and screenwriter currently living in Manhattan. He is best known for his play Visiting Mr. Green . Baron’s plays have been said to focus primarily on family relationships and conflicts, friendship, romance, sex, and the need for human connection...
's Visiting Mr. Green
Visiting Mr. Green
Visiting Mr. Green is a stage play by American author Jeff Baron that has been performed and lauded around the world.- Storyline :86 year old widower Mr. Green is almost hit by a car driven by young corporate executive Ross Gardiner. Found guilty of reckless driving, Ross is ordered to spend the...
, where he teaches an unsympathetic parole officer a lesson in kinship and in cinema such as in the Chilean film, El brindis ("The Toast," 2007), where a Jewish-Chilean patriarch struggles to bring his disparate family closer.
Pepe Soriano