In El desconcierto (1981, Disconcerted), written and staged during Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’, a pianist, Irene della Porta, is paid handsomely to play Beethoven’s Patetique on a piano that emits no sound. The audience buys tickets to watch Irene wrench sounds out of nothingness: “It is as if the woman and the audience, although knowing that the Beethoven Sonata cannot be heard, were mysteriously capable of composing ‘this other non-existent concert’” reads the opening stage directions. At the end of the play, the piano regains its sound as if by magic. But after so many silent concerts, Irene della Porta no longer knows how to make “real” music. Desensitized fingers produce harsh, discordant notes. Shocked and defeated by her ultimate failure as an artist, she rejoices when the piano once again becomes mute. (In Raznovich, Defiant Acts/Actos Desafiantes. Ed. D. Taylor and V. Martinez, Bucknell U.P.)

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