Theater: Life in the Countdown | nd-aktuell.de

Freedom is a very overused word. After the German premiere of the play “Los Días Afuera/The Days Out There” by author and director Lola Arias on Thursday evening, it is filled with content: The six actors, who have just talked about their life before prison for more than 90 minutes, in Prison and after prison, can still hardly believe that they are now here, in Europe, and are being cheered on by a sold-out audience.

After “The Days Out There” celebrated its world premiere at the Festival d’Avignon at the beginning of July, the piece is now a guest for three evenings at the summer festival at the Hamburg Cultural Center Kampnagel and then continues through Europe. Paris is also on the tour schedule. A place of longing, especially for Yoseli Marlene Arias (not related to Lola Arias). The young woman, arrested for drug smuggling in 2017 and released from prison in 2021, has the Eiffel Tower tattooed on her back.

The members of the ensemble spent between a month and many years in the Ezeiza women’s prison near Buenos Aires. “The number of women in prison in Argentina has doubled in the last ten years,” explains Arias in an interview. “And the same applies to trans people.” There are clearly political reasons for this.

Most inmates in women’s prisons are drug mules. It goes without saying that this is not just an illegal hobby. The four women and two trans people on stage come from, at least some of them, very broken backgrounds and experienced abuse, violence and poverty before their time in prison. Of course, despite a self-determination law for trans and non-binary people passed in 2012, trans people were and are exposed to considerable discrimination. And as a Peruvian, Paula Verónica Asturayme always has to deal with the racism of the majority society.

Bringing marginalized perspectives to the stage has long been the author and director’s theatrical practice, from people who earn their living on the streets, to sex workers and unaccompanied minor refugees, to war veterans and women from the GDR. Most of us also only know the world of the penal system as fiction from films and television, not to mention its inhabitants.

Life behind bars is primarily discussed in the film “Reas,” which was made alongside the play with the same ensemble. “The Days Out There” provides more than just an idea of ​​this, but as the title suggests, it is more about life after prison, which the lively sextet and musician Inés Copertino negotiate on stage: in front of you prosaic scaffolding (stage: Mariana Tirantte), which not only brings to mind the biographical makeshift arrangements of the performers, but also the bars of a prison – and of course also the construction of stages themselves. To the right in front of it there is a cut-off car in which the freedmen sum up the journey, dream and let the wind blow through their hair.

Nobody chooses their fate freely, nobody knows what will happen, yesterday is not important, what will come will be seen – so they sing together. Which almost seems too optimistic. Because the six themselves demonstrate what really happens after prison: the job interview ends at the latest with the question about any previous convictions.

Some of the actors met in prison during a band project. For them, music is a way out of the hostile everyday life, a means of expression, a way to feel something other than the hostility of their fellow human beings and the fragility of the economic situation. Music plays a big role in “The Days Out There”. Cumbia, rock, pop – the songs that Copertino accompanies, sometimes supported by parts of the ensemble on guitar and drums, give the evening the character of a number revue.

But that’s okay. It doesn’t impose any form on these people. The euphoric fervor with which they sing, dance and play cannot be overlooked. And when there is a hint of romantic frosting, the next break is not far away: Natal Delfino reports that he bought a water tank with the fee for the piece.

The International Summer Festival on Kampnagel will take place until August 25th.

www.kampnagel.de
»Los Días Afuera/The Days Out There« celebrates its Berlin premiere on September 14th at the Maxim Gorki Theater.

www.gorki.de