tijuana (d. gabino rodríguez, lagartijas tiradas al sol)

A man with a moustache is already on stage as the play opens. He has his back to us. There is a large TV screen on set and a small neat pile of bricks. Behind is a large painted canvas with a representation of Tijuana. The man proceeds to explain that he is an actor who decided to go to Tijuana and work in a maquillardora (a sweatshop factory) near the border for six months as an investigative project. He tells us that he filmed secretly and badly and also recorded audio. This is the story of his time in Tijuana. 

What follows over the course of the next hour or so is his account of his stay, punctuated by a recorded interview of the same actor somewhere else, (DF), giving an interview about his experiences. We, the audience, know that we are part of a theatrical game: the account being given is partial and not particularly trustworthy. In the end the actor says that he had to cut his time short, because he was scared of being found out. In the neighbourhood where he is staying, a poor neighbourhood, he has heard a story of a lynching. There are codes in the barrio, and he doesn’t want to fall awry of them. 

As such, dramatically, not a lot happens. Nevertheless, the piece remains compelling. This is in part because of the dramatic suspense inherent in the set-up, but also because the story offers a window on a world from which few stories have emerged. Pace Humbolt, in an age where the geographical world has been charted, then the uncharted waters are the urban no-go areas where the majority of the world’s population now lives. What is it really like to live in a barrio where the police won’t enter on the California border? The actor makes clear in the play, repeatedly, that he doesn’t want to romanticise poverty. He wants to communicate what it’s like to live there on a subsistence wage, making the goods which the Western world consumes, at the hard end of the neo-liberal machine. 

Inevitably, the portrait is partial. As the actor observes, he knows it’s not for life. But there are moments in the play, - the sad disco, the classical music loving political activist, family meals, the social codes - that register on the audience’s consciousness above and beyond the confines of the theatre. For a while, we walk in the actor’s footsteps, through the alleyways of Tijuana. 

ps - There is a more detailed and scholarly debate to be had (which was touched upon in the post-show discussion) about “documentary theatre” as well as the wave of quasi-biographical theatre (“auto-ficcion”) which is sweeping Latin America (Sergio Blanco, Lola Arias etc.). The ethics and the effectiveness of this re-imagining of theatre. However, that debate, discussion could perhaps wait for another moment.