La estación.

Play based on the short story 'El guardagujas', by Mexican writer Juan José Arreola. The action is set in a train station where trains either never show up or pass by without stopping, leaving different characters - and their families - stranded. When the train does pass, some of the passengers disappear. This sparks endless discussions on the calamitous situation of train companies in the country (which reflects, and stands for, the calamitous situation of the country itself). Chaos, uncertainty and fear grow larger, just as in Colombian society in the '80s (it was the time of the 'Guerra Sucia', the 'dirty' civil war that involved the state, guerrillas and paramilitary forces). Nobody knows which station they are in. There are no signs. Where are they? What is their destination? Teatro Experimental de Cali (TEC) is a collective of artists committed to the exploration and creation of new languages for Latin American theater. Founded in Colombia in 1955 by Enrique Buenaventura and a group of students at the Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes, TEC has had a long and fruitful trajectory; their artistic and theoretical work has revolutionized the way that theater is conceived and practiced in Latin America. A key contribution to the field is their method of 'creación colectiva' ('collective creation'), in which all the participants of the play - including the audience - become involved with the dramatic text and its staging. In spite of this stress on collective work, TEC had in Enrique Buenaventura its main poet and playwright, who developed most of TEC's texts and directed the majority of their plays. While TEC's works address various historical and social issues, artistic quality is not sacrificed for the sake of political radicalism. TEC has thus created a theater that is politically and culturally engaged, poetic and innovative without losing its popular appeal. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics