Alberto Olmedo: la apoteosis del chanta

Abstract

Alberto Olmedo is an emblematic figure of Argentine popular culture in the second half of the 20th century. He was an intuitive actor and he developed his career mainly on television, a platform that helped him successfully move to film and theater. The idea that he achieved his success through a combination of slyness and opportunity set the tone for his style. This is how his personal history was linked to his public figure and his acting qualities, associating himself with a particular type of character in Argentine cinema and narrative arts: the chanta. This type is characterized by cheating through staging and interpretive games, with the aim of obtaining some immediate benefit. Here I analyze two elements of his vast work to explain how that association worked: the sketches "Grotowski and Stanislavski" and "El Manosanta", along with the latter’s film adaptation.