Review: No honor in Machismo: Teatro Dallas closes its 22 International Theatre Festival with Argentina's POTESTAD.

Potestad

By Eduardo Pavlovsky

Directed and Performed by Hugo Kogen

Produced by Teatro Dallas

Audience Rating: PG

Running Time: 75 minutes

Accessible Seating: Available

Hearing Devices: Not Available

Sensory Friendly Showing: Not Available

ASL Showing: Not Available

Sound Level: Comfortable volume

Audio/Visuals to Prepare For: None of note

Reviewed by Bradford Reilly

On February 21, 2026, the third installment of Teatro Dallas’ International Festival brought a searing work of Argentine political theatre to the stage of the Latino Cultural Center. In Potestad by Eduardo Pavlovsky, internationally renowned Argentine actor Hugo Kogan delivered a one-man performance that was intimate, disturbing, and devastatingly relevant.

The staging was stark: three chairs set equidistant from one another; each covered in white sheets. Kogan entered in white scrubs. 

The play unfolded in distinct tonal movements marked by light and sound. Under uncolored light, the man Kogan portrays recounts a seemingly normal day. He introduces his wife, Ana Maria and his daughter, Adriana. In these early moments, Kogan renders him charismatic and even charming, suffused with humor and relatability. He could be any middle-class father. And then, agents take his daughter, Adriana, away.

Then a music box begins to play, and the stage shifts into blue. The man grieves, speaking to a newly-introduced fourth character, “Tita.” Tita is the man’s confidante and friend, a source of comfort as his wife descends into despair. Kogan’s physicality alters dramatically in this light —as he grieves, the man reverts, infantilized, wrecked by loss, desperate for support.  

The third movement arrives under red light, accompanied by the same music box melody. Here, the man hardens. His posture straightens, his voice authoritative. The truth emerges: he was a doctor summoned by Argentina’s military dictatorship to certify the deaths of two so called “fanatics” aligned with the political left. Left alone after his task, he hears a two-year-old girl crying. He takes her home, renames her Adriana, and raises her as his own.

The kidnapping described at the start of the play is suddenly reframed. The agents who “stole” Adriana may well have been her biological relatives—or operatives seeking to restore children abducted during the dictatorship. The grieving father is revealed as a collaborator, a man who supported the regime and helped conceal its crimes.

By the final section, the lighting returns to a stark neutrality, but now tightly focused. Kogan’s performance becomes percussive and aggressive. Throughout the play, the character edges toward regret, accountability, and grief, but cannot remain there. Instead, he covers vulnerability with machismo and rage. The play ends not with resolution but a confrontation and rejection of the most humane parts of himself.

 
To understand the full weight of Potestad is to situate it historically. The work emerged from two major theatrical movements born during Argentina’s military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s. One was Open Theatre (Teatro Abierto), an avant-garde collective that staged works in direct opposition to the regime. The other was a wave of plays grappling with the systematic kidnapping of children from political dissidents—children who were often given to families aligned with the dictatorship.
 
Pavlovsky’s play sits at the intersection of these currents. It exposes the banality of complicity: the terrifying truth that very normal people are capable of extraordinary crimes. The protagonist is not a monster in any obvious sense. He is cultured, articulate, even loving in his way. And that is precisely the horror.
 
During a post-show talkback guided by Teatro Dallas Founding Director Cora Cardona, Kogan reflected on the language of violence embedded in machismo and patriarchal conditioning. The character’s early relatability, he suggested, arises from traits many societies lionize: authority, control, emotional restraint. Yet those same traits curdle into fascistic tendencies when thrust upon youth. For example, Kogan relates, the man is told not to mourn his mother’s death, for grief is too feminine. Gendered expectations and rigid binaries can become pathways toward authoritative and inhumane societies.
 
Kogan also noted the contemporary resonance of the piece. He drew parallels between Argentina’s current political climate and the militaristic regime of decades past, particularly in the disinvestment in the humanities and the erosion of cultural institutions. In that context, Potestad is a warning.
 
“The job of an artist,” Kogan said, as summarized by Cardona, “is to lend an ear, listen, hear, take the energy of the moment to create theatre—and to dance—because that is what keeps truth alive.” Resistance through the arts, he argued, is essential to preventing the corruption of power from going unchecked.
 
That urgency reverberated through the performance. Though the play was delivered entirely in Spanish, it remained accessible to audience members who, like me, do not speak the language (and it was a mixed-language audience!) More importantly, Kogan’s physical storytelling transcended linguistic barriers. His body became the text, carrying the emotional argument of the play.
 
This year marked the 22^nd International Festival hosted by Teatro Dallas. I highly recommend you attend in the years—and I challenge you to go to as many of the performances you can, whether or not you speak the language. Now more than ever it is important to learn about global perspectives from different cultures—understand the stories outside of America and find that we all have a common humanity that deserves our attention.

Until Next Time, 

Bradford Reilly