- Title: Argentine play explores female, trans challenges of prison life
- Date: 19th June 2024
- Summary: The United States is working very actively on securing the release of Gershkovich and Whelan, Blinken said on December 20. WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (FILE - DECEMBER 20, 2023) (STATE TV) (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE, ANTONY BLINKEN, SAYING: "With regard to Russia and Evan, Paul Whelan. All I can say is this: we're very actively working on it and we w
- Embargoed: 3rd July 2024 11:57
- Keywords: actors actresses art jail play prison prisoners queer theater trans
- Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA / BERN, SWITZERLAND
- City: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA / BERN, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Argentina
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,South America / Central America,Theatre
- Reuters ID: LVA00B181418062024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: "The past haunts you and the future never arrives" six actors sing on stage in Argentine prison play and musical documentary "Los Días Afuera", exploring the lives and challenges of women and transgender inmates before
and after their time in jail.
The play, by director Lola Arias, winner of the prestigious International Ibsen Award, is heading to Europe at the end of June. It's part of a broader project that arose from a film and theater workshop that Arias gave in a women's prison.
It is acted by the women and transgender inmates themselves, now sex workers, carers or taxi drivers. They look back at their time in jail and the challenges of adapting to life outside.
"Many times prison is simply a storage space for people who are excluded from society," Arias, 47, told Reuters.
"That is part of what the film and the play tell in their ways because they question the need for prisons, why prisons exist and how we could imagine a different justice system."
The director wanted to look at the theme through the lens of women and trans people, looking at the bonds of solidarity built up in prison, moving away from the traditional male-centered stories of marginality and violence in jail.
The protagonists tell their stories through song and dance with rock, cumbia and bachata music, a way to add some levity to the situations of vulnerability and marginality they experience.
Ignacio Rodriguez, a trans man who was jailed for nine years, told Reuters the project been life-changing, giving him a reason to build towards the future. It also helped draw out the stigmatization of trans people and focus on shared experiences.
"That is what we want to share and transmit: empathy, sorority, accompaniment, companionship, love, despite all the circumstances that one may go through," said Rodríguez, who formed a rock band in prison, where he also began studying law.
Yoseli Arias, a 28-year-old woman who was in prison for over four years, said she hoped the play helped spur thought about what prison life was really like.
"It is a story told by ourselves, of our own life and experience and of what we would like the future to look like: just to be treated like ordinary people," she told Reuters with her baby in the theater dressing room nearby.
"Getting away from the marginalization we lived with before, and having the possibility of a decent job."
Director Lola Arias said she chose to focus on women and transgender inmates because of the unique "gender problems" they faced, including harassment and criminalization.
(Production: Horacio Soria, Nina Lopez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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