Cosmopolitan life is everyday reality to Nuñez. ‘I have always travelled a lot, because I think it is important to get to know the traditions of different people. In the end, what’s important is what is common to all cultures. The differences are only details, which certainly enrich life, but grief, for example, as a theme is global. You notice that when you take a play from one culture to another.’
Nuñez emphasises that she has not consciously aimed to become Finnish theatre’s ambassador to the Spanish-speaking world.
‘Combining Finland and Peru is, for me, simply an act of love. If you love two countries equally deeply, you want to share it with other people. I have lived in Finland for almost 15 years, I have two homelands and home cities, my native Lima and Helsinki. I am simply a woman with two hearts, one in South America and the other in northern Europe.
Theatre is, for Nuñez, a way of making her two hearts into one. ‘I want to show what is beautiful in both my homelands. For example, that where night once meant, for me, only darkness, now it can be full of the light of a summer’s night.’
Drama of strong women
Nuñez’s translations of Finnish plays range in time from Minna Canth in the 1890s to the 1960s as depicted by Jussi Kylätasku or the 1990s of Jouko Turkka. The themes of the plays are surprisingly homogeneous. And heavy.
The young woman in Canth’s Anna Liisa eventually succumbs to the pressure of society and kills her illegitimate child. Jussi Kylätasku’s Runar ja Kyllikki (‘Runar and Kyllikki’), which is based on real life, on the other hand, deals with the murder of a young woman in a closed and narrow community.
‘I have noticed that Anna-Liisa, which first appeared in the 1890s, is now, one hundred years after it was written, relevant in Peru in a completely different way from in Finland. Sexual liberation and double standards in morality as it is applied to women are important as themes. It is a question of questioning what is permissible and what is not.’
Nœ–ez also writes strong women’s dramas herself. Her own play Sue–os de una tarde dominical, which received a drama award in Spain in 1999, deals with the artists Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
‘Womanhood is a strong force in theatre and society everywhere and in all societies. I am sure that, a couple of thousand years ago, women were sitting in cafés and discussing their identity, theatre and life in general just like me in Helsinki now. The themes are eternal.’
A European childhood in Peru
Maritza Nuñez grew up in Lima, the capital of Peru, but surrounded by a European tradition. Her mother was a poet who loved the classics of Russian literature, and her father a physicist who was crazy about the European tradition in classical music. Their daughter became a cosmopolitan for whom it was quite natural to set out for Moscow for ten years after leaving school, to study choral conducting.
‘I had a very European education, and I was already looking toward Europe during my schooldays. Even the Spanish language, after all, is a European import. I heard Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia and Valse Triste for the first time in Peru. I got to know the pan-pipes and fell in love with them only as an adult, when I was already in Europe.
Nuñez was not surprised by the ease with which a play can shift from one country and culture to another. ‘But it was moving to see with my own eyes how it suddenly seemed as if the writer Jussi Kylätasku and the Finnish summer night and village street had been in Peru forever.’
Plays live only in print
The scarcity of printed drama is, according to Nuñez, a threat to theatre as a whole. ‘Plays should definitely be published more as books, to let them live. A book is always a ritual from which the reader can build his own world and which can be reborn. Theatre, particularly international theatre, is foreign to people because it is published and translated so little,’ sighs Nuñez.
The lack of translated literature is, for Nuñez, a bigger problem for speakers of world languages than, for example, Finns: ‘Finns are like chameleons, quick to adopt other languages and customs. If a Finn wants, for example, to dance the samba or the Argentinian tango, he will simply learn it, and learn it well. Curiosity toward other cultures is a healthy impulse which is considered natural in a small-language country. Because Spanish is a world language and much is translated into it, and quickly, we have become regrettably lazy in finding out about foreign-language cultures for ourselves.’
Bridge-builder
Maritza Nuñez stresses that she is a writer for whom translating is merely a sideline, if a broad one. Among the work of this prolific author are six collections of poetry, prose, opera libretti and plays. ‘My Finnish identity is clearly visible in them, even if I write in Spanish. Identity is not a constant quantity, but a process. You change constantly culturally, and bring different landscapes, scents and rhythms into your language.’
Nuñez compares the work of a translator to acting. ‘I can’t translate myself, Maritza-the-writer; I have to step into the skin of, for example, Paavo Haavikko. It is a question of a role and an adventure, which is different with every writer I have translated. Just as an actor playing Hamlet in the same way as Uncle Vanya would be an absolutely dreadful Hamlet, although Uncle Vanya, as a character, is just as brilliant.’
Eleven translations of plays have flowed from Nuñez’s pen in rapid succession. ‘And that’s enough. As a writer, I now need some breathing space. Jealousy between people is a small thing compared to how creative work is jealous of it’s maker’s time and thoughts. We have built and used the bridge between Finland and the Spanish-speaking world. Contacts have been made, and we know that the next Finnish play is already expected in Peru.’
According to Nuñez, there is no shortage of texts worth translating. ‘At the moment in Finland there are plenty of young dramatists, in particular, whose work would be worth translating, and will no doubt soon be translated. The bridge is now strong, and I believe that there will be plenty of travellers along it.
Encounter of theatrical traditions
Publishing plays is, according to Maritza Nuñez, more than simply conveying the language. ‘In addition to translating and publishing the text, the performance as a whole is important. I have considered it of primary importance that in addition to the text, expertise from the various parts of the theatre travels from Finland to Peru and vice versa. The encounter of two different traditions of making theatre in the creation of a single play is always an enriching experience for both cultures.’
Nœ–ez stresses theatre as a field of collaboration. ‘Theatre makes interaction possible on so many different levels. I value the long tradition of Finnish theatre. For example, training in scenery and costume is of a high standard in Finland and an essential part of dramaturgy in quite a different way from in Peru. The Spanish-language Runar y Kyllikki, presented in 1999 as part of the Tampere summer theatre festival, brought to Finland some young Peruvian theatre students who received here vital training and experience, but at the same time taught the Finns something with their genuine enthusiasm. A good performance touches people, irrespective of the language.’
Collaboration between the countries will also continue in a natural way when Nuñez’s own play, Sue–os de una tarde dominical receives its first performance in Peru in August this year, directed by the Finn Raija-Sinikka Rantala.
Nœ–ez says she is looking forward to the first night like a child waiting for Christmas. ‘It is marvellous that the production will combine the traditions of both my homelands. I will finally see my Peruvian heart and my Finnish one on stage at the same time and in sweet harmony!’
Theatre as the art of dreaming
Nœ–ez has been enchanted by the theatre since she was a little girl. ‘The theatre is of vital importance to people. It is part of our basic nature to balance ourselves between reality and fiction. In the theatre, play and reality combine spontaneously.’
According to Nuñez, the theatre fights for basic human rights. ‘I believe that every person has the right to stay a child forever. Childhood is a world I want never to lose contact with. Children can cross the border between the visible and the invisible whenever they wish. Suddenly the air is food and then in a moment just air again. The child is a treasure within everyone. The memory of what it is like to be a child lives in us forever. It is to uphold this memory that the theatre is needed.
Nuñez sees it as the clear task of the theatre to cultivate humanist values. ‘We must go on believing that what we do and think is not a matter of indifference. The individual is a small but active part of the universe. Great thinkers and artists such as André Breton and Diego Rivera are untied by the courage to dream. Whether they realise their dreams is another matter entirely. The important thing is that they dared. The most important thing we can learn from the past millennium and the theatre is that we should never stop dreaming.’
