Gustavo Ott

Early work

n 1988 Teatro Cinco was published in Venezuela including the plays Los peces crecen con la luna (1983, Red Sky At Night), El Siglo de las luces (1986) and Passport (1988), which explores the loss of identity due to arbitrariness and lack of communication.

Productions and anthologies

Ott’s stage premiere, by the group TextoTeatro, came in 1989 with Divorcees, Evangelists, and Vegetarians, a comedy about women’s friendship. Other comedies followed, such as Apostando a Elisa (1990) and Cielito lindo (1990).

The 1991 premiere of Pavlov: Two Seconds Before the Crime showcased Ott’s hallmark "cruel and unusual humor." GALA’s (Washington, D.C.) production of this play in 1995, under the direction of Abel Lopez, marked Ott’s American stage debut.

During those years, Ott wrote plays with social issues for wide audiences, with pieces like Whoever Said I was a Good Girl? (1992), a play on youth gang violence, also produced in the US by GALA. With Good Girl… Ott founded the Teatro San Martin de Caracas (TSMC), while that same year Madrid’s Cuarta Pared inaugurated its Lavapies Theater with Passport, directed by Javier Yague.

Linda gatita (Minor Leagues) also opened that year, chronicling the search for affection in relations between North and South America. The Very Thought of You (Quiereme Mucho) followed at TSMC (1993), with parallel stories of immigration and love in two different generations symmetrically structured as an Escher painting. It opened in Caracas in 1994 directed by the author.

In 1996 Avispa Editorial (Madrid) published two volumes with six plays covering Ott’s early work. In 1997 Las piezas del mal was published in Caracas, collecting Pavlov; 2 Seconds Before Crime, (1986) a play about crime, media and conditional reflexes; Gorditas (Fat Chicks, 1993) a play for a female cast on the subject of ambition, and Corazon pornografico (1995), a comedy that analyzes crime in a style that ranges from realism to comic book. In 1996 Ott began his most important group of plays to date, which he called Pentagram, comprising five plays in what he dubbed "the Latin American macabre style".

These include Comegato, (1997) a work on the dilemma between decency and crime, stage in Caracas in 1998 directed by the author; Fotomato (1995), an autopsy of the Latin American soul, staged in Caracas in 1999 and directed by the author; 80 Teeth, 4 Feet & 500 Pounds (1996), an epic on the subject of guilt; Tres esqueletos y medio (1997), a play on the macabre intersection between transcendence and the criminal present, staged in Caracas in 2000 directed by the author; and Miss (1999) an epic on Latin American ambition, staged in Caracas in 2002 directed by the author.

Consolidation

In 2002 Casa de America in Madrid published Dos amores y un bicho (Two Loves and a Creature), a play that inaugurated a new period in Ott’s style, with few ties to his previous work, particularly in its use of form, subject and language. This play about hatred was quickly translated to English, French, German and Creole and premiered in Caracas in 2004, under the author's direction. As Deux amours et une petite bette, the play opened in December 2003 in Lyon, France. That year, Ott’s one-man show Bandolero y malasangre, (Brigand et Filou) translated by Francoise Thanas, premiered in Potiers, France by Scene Nationale and later opened in Catalan by the group Diverbia in Valencia, Spain. Conjunto (Cuba) published the play in 2004.

In 2002 and 2003 was chosen to participate in the "New Work Now!" program at Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York, with 80 Teeth… and Two Loves and a Creature, both translated by Heather McKay, as well as the Playwriting Program of La Mousson D’Ete in France and La Mousson a Paris in the Comedie Francaise, with Photomaton, translated by Francoise Thanas and directed by Michel Didym.

Also in 2004, in Santander, Spain, Your Molotov Kisses, a play on the interrelation of intolerance and terrorism, was published. Molotov premiered the same year in the Teatro Cuyas of la Palma on Grand Canary Island and also in Argentina (CELCIT, 2006). It has been performed in Mexico (Teatro Xola, DF, 2006), Portugal (AL-MaSRAH Teatro, Algarve), Washington, D.C. (GALA, 2008), Colombia (Teatro Nacional, 2008), California (Teatro de las Americas, 2008), Caracas (2009) and in the Kitchen Dog Theater of Dallas as part of its "New Plays" stage reading program in 2007.

In 2005 Deux amours et une petitte Bette was presented again in the Studio of the Comedie Francaise, also translated by Thanas, under the direction of Vicent Colin (Lecture Semaine de la Caraibe). Photomaton was published in France by Les Solitaires Intempestifs de Paris. In 2006 Ott opened his first comedy in 10 years, Pony, on deception and the election process. That same year, the Quartiers D´Ivry program in Paris presented Deux amours… and Photomaton stage readings, directed by Elizabeth Chailloux. 120 Lives minute, a piece on catastrophe and the meaning of art and country, premiered in Caracas, under direction of the author in 2007, following the English production at Ohio Northern University, directed by Otto Minera.

In 2008 Spain’s Asociacion de Autores de Teatro published Monstruos en el closet, ogros bajo la cama (Monsters in the closet, Ogres Under the Bed), a piece on the victims of 9/11, while Mexico’s Paso de Gato published Passport in its Cuadernos de Dramaturgia Internacional. That same year, Lagoudera Publishers in Athens published Your Molotov´s Kisses translated by Stamatis Polenakis and Chat (2008), a play about collective perversity in virtual communication, translated by Stamatis Polenakis, D. Siuva, Cleopatra Eleotriviari, S. Cufopulu, A. Sarafi, C. Tsocalidu and I. Lasopulu.

Chat opened at Teatro San Martin de Caracas in April 2009, while GALA’s Tivoli Theatre saw the premiere of Ott’s musical Mummy in the Closet: The Return of Eva Peron (2008), on the beginnings of the macabre and dirty war in South America. Fotomaton was included in the Performing Arts Marathon 2009 of Teatro IATI in New York, and Your Molotov´s Kisses" and Pony, both directed by John Rodaz were performed in both Spanish and English at the Arena Stage in Miami.

In 2009 under the direction of Tlaloc Rivas, CUNY staged a reading of Miss and Madame (2008), which explores hatred and admiration during the twentieth century through the rivalry between Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden. This play was translated to English and French and premiered at the Teatro San Martin de Caracas in 2010. Also, in French, Miss and Madame (Mademoiselle et Madame) was presented at Limoges Festival (Limosin, Francia, 2010), and selected to participate at the Mardis Midi Program by Theatre du Rond Point in Paris (2011) both directed by Daniel Gouchard.

Recent years

He published Juanita Claxton (2007) translated into English by Heather Mckay, a play about the necessity for rescue, using hurricane Katrina as a metaphor. In 2011 Lirica (2010) premiered at the Teatro San Martin de Caracas, a play about poetry and friendship as an antidote for hatred and violence.

In 2011, Monte Avila Editores published his first novel: Yo no se matar, pero voy a aprender, (I don´t know how to kill, but I will learn).

Meriwether Publishing in the U.S. published selections from Ott’s plays in English, translated by Heather McKay, in Audition Monologs for Student Actors (1999); International Plays for Young Audiences (2000); Audition Monologs for Student Actors II (2001) and "ew Audition Scenes and Monologues from Contemporary Playwrights: The Best New Cuttings From Around the World (2003, 2005 and 2007).

Recognition

Has received numerous playwriting awards, including:

Published works