Los de ahí

About the show

A wasteland just outside the city. A foreign city. The machine located on the mountain, a kind of smart box office organises the orders. Los de ahí: Nuno, Munir, Dani and Eduardo await the signal, the sound that will tell them their next destination. The shipping address appears on the map on their phones alongside foreign and unknown words. They collect the parcel, get on the bike and deliver the order. Guessing part of the route. Entirely unaware of what they are transporting. And then, back to the starting point. Until the machine located on the mountain again gives the signal. Invisible to that vast city that awaits their services, they weave their lives, organise themselves, take care of themselves, and distrust. The silence of the wasteland is populated by falling bikes, by voices that come from different corners of the world. The noise of life that resists the emptiness. Forced coexistence that transforms into a place of belonging. Into a social network. Into a reference.

Mirja, a young woman native to the place approaches the site. Her story is inextricably linked to Nuno’s, one of the deliverymen. There’s an air about her that is reminiscent of that strange city.

And Susan mingles with all of them. A professional survivor. Unclassifiably genuine. Vital for her philosophy and conviction. Wishing to wish to feel alive.

The machine located on the mountain dictates the routine. It groups them, orders them. A fragile balance of bodies trying to be. Invisible in silence. Noisy. Full of life.

Writer and director’s note

I confess that I’m afraid. It’s probably the years that have made me more fragile. The sound of my children breathing while they sleep that makes me think the world is bigger and me smaller. Cruelty is not new, I know. Indifference, however, seems to be new to these times.

In my life, the theatre always had the capacity to remind me of what it is to be human. For better and worse. Sometimes it made me feel less monstrous, it invited me to accept myself as different. At other times, it expanded my boundaries, forcing me to put myself in uncomfortable places. To try to understand how complex life is. To break down prejudices and instantaneous precepts. The theatre as a funhouse mirror that forces us to see as if for the first time. To listen as if for the first time.

Los de ahí is a small invisible universe, full of life. Ignored beings, whose faces or names we would normally not remember, clumsily reveal their stories while delivering parcels. Without knowing who sends them, or their content, not knowing the language of the country where they live.

Life, however, thrives among the frenzied activity of bicycles coming and going, beyond words. It’s in their bodies. In the distant music carried in their voices.

And in the inalienable desire to exist despite everything. To occupy a place in the world. To be remembered by someone. I don’t want to see them from afar, point at them compassionately. We’re one step away from being as foreign, invisible and orphans as they are.

If theatre allows me to inject a piece of life there, to remind me of what it means to be human, then I will know why I am doing it. A small fight, willingly. To combat fear.

Claudio Tolcachir