En la raya.

The play deals with one of Colombia's most excruciating problems: social exclusion and its effects on everyday life. The characters in this play are all urban outcasts: homeless, prostitutes, beggars, etc. They are trying to build bridges to the larger community through participation in a theater group. The group wants to do a rendition of García Márquez's 'Crónica de una muerte anunciada'. The difficulties and tensions that arise around this project underline the extreme character of their exclusion, by-product of the abject poverty and lack of opportunities they experience in a society dismembered by class fragmentation and inequalities. At the end, the place where they were rehearsing is shut down and one of them is killed. The project, too, had a 'foretold death'. The play is part of La Calendaria's exploration of non verbal languages as means of dramatic expression; it also marks the beginning of the collaboration with urban poor and the organizations trying to help them. La Candelaria (www.teatrolacandelaria.org.co) was founded in 1966 by a group of independent artists and intellectuals from Colombia's experimental theater and cultural realm. Directed by Santiago García, La Candelaria is one of Colombian theater's most innovative agents, modernizing national drama while addressing popular audiences. By means of an ongoing exploration of national folklore, situations and characters, they have created some of Colombia's most compelling plays, some of them through the method of 'creación colectiva' ('collective creation'), addressing the acute social and political problems of their society. At the same time, they fostered the creation of Corporación Colombiana del Teatro and have developed a number of theoretical works that reflect upon dramatic creation, its methods and languages. Still nowadays, La Candelaria is committed to repertoire, experimentation, and discussion as fundamental elements to artistic creation. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics