Blanca Oteyza is back where her story first took flight. After more than three decades, the Spanish actress has returned to Buenos Aires to step into the life of another remarkable woman who crossed the same ocean.
This time, she’s embodying Margarita Xirgu in Margarita Xirgu. Una actriz entre dos continentes, directed by Javier Demaría at the Palacio Libertad. The role feels almost personal. Xirgu, the legendary Spanish actress and close collaborator of Federico García Lorca, also left Europe behind and built a powerful second chapter in Argentina and Uruguay.
For Oteyza, the connection runs deep. She first arrived in Argentina in 1991 and spent eight intense years working in theater, television, and film. Audiences still remember her alongside Miguel Ángel Solá in El diario de Adán y Eva. The two shared a life and two daughters, María Luz and Cayetana. Later she returned to Spain, where she expanded her work as a director and teacher. Yet the pull of Argentina never fully faded.
“I’ve wanted to come back for years,” Oteyza told Teleshow before opening night. “This project finally gave me the courage and the reason to step on stage here again.”
A Role That Mirrors Her Own Path
What drew her to Xirgu was more than history. It was the sense of recognition. Both women left Spain chasing their craft. Both found something essential in Argentina. Both lived with a fierce commitment to their principles.
“Margarita was coherent with her ideas,” Oteyza explained. “She left Spain without knowing the Civil War would break out and never returned. That determination moves me.” She sees the same thread in her own choices — leaving home to pursue acting, raising her daughters with a clear sense of values, and returning now with a story that feels true to both of them.
On stage she is joined by bandoneonist Julio Coviello. The show blends poetry, music, and personal storytelling as it follows Xirgu from childhood to the end of her life. Oteyza and Demaría deliberately focused on the human side of the icon rather than political or personal speculation.
Love for the Art — and the Audience
Oteyza still speaks with warmth about the Argentine public. “I always felt enormous generosity here,” she said. “That affection doesn’t feed my ego. It pushes me to be a better person.”
She also credits Argentina with teaching her something she hadn’t fully found in Spain at the time: a pure, collective love for the craft. She recalls people finishing regular jobs, removing their ties, and rehearsing late into the night simply because the work mattered. That spirit left a lasting mark.
Today she feels a dual sense of belonging. “Argentina is my country of adoption by choice,” she said. Borders never defined her. The experiences on both sides of the Atlantic shaped the artist and the woman she became.
What She Hopes Audiences Take Away
In the days before opening, Oteyza admitted she sleeps little. The responsibility of returning to Buenos Aires weighs on her. Yet her goal remains simple and powerful.
She wants the audience to leave moved. She hopes they discover the human Margarita — the girl who first stepped on stage at eight, the woman who loved poetry and fought for her dreams — and carry that emotion with them.
For Oteyza, this return is more than a career moment. It is a full-circle conversation between two lives, two continents, and the enduring power of theater to connect them.