Tonight (Saturday) is opening night of Buenos Aires in Translation (BAiT). This is an incredibly exciting project and I strongly urge everyone who is interested in contemporary playwriting to attend at least one, if not all four, plays in this series.

Buenos Aires is renowned as the playwriting epicenter of Latin America. Particularly over the past decade, new theatre from Argentina has captured the attention of South America, Europe and Australasia. For many of the reasons you can imagine it -lack of funding, prohibitive American visa policies, etc. – this work has not made it to the the United States until now.

BAiT (Buenos Aires in Translation) epitomizes true international theatrical collaboration, bringing together four of the most dynamic playwrights from Buenos Aires and pairing them with four cutting-edge U.S.-based directors to present a repertory program of English language world premieres. This is the first time that any of these remarkable playwrights will have their plays presented in the United States.

The shows will run in rep so you can see two shows per night or four shows in two days. Here are the plays:

WOMEN DREAMT HORSES
by Daniel Veronese, directed by Jay Scheib
Three women and the three brothers to whom they are married play a zero-sum game in which all will be losers. A family business has closed, and there is a meeting to talk about it. Dinner is served, but it will never be eaten.
Approximate running time: 70 minutes

A KINGDOM, A COUNTRY OR A WASTELAND, IN THE SNOW
by Lola Arias, directed by Yana Ross
In a cold country where it is always night, two sisters, Luba, young and tough, and Lisa, older and easy prey for love, hunt and breed hares. When they end up catching a man – Reo, a wild orphan – and bringing him home, family chaos ensues.
Approximate running time: 75 minutes

PANIC
by Rafael Spregelburd,
directed by Brooke O’Harra with her company,
The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf
Infused with the aesthetics of low-budget horror movies, Panic follows a mother and her two children, remnants of an unclassifiable family, as they attempt to recover the key to their safety deposit box and the life savings within – from the hands of the dead. Their pursuit is a fatal cocktail of desperate measures: from legal, religious, and psychotherapeutic tactics to the paranormal.
Approximate running time: 120 minutes

EX ANTWONE
by Federico Leon, directed by Juan Souki
This hyper-fragmented text imagines a dreamlike encounter with the past, navigating a labyrinth where memories, fantasies and being overlap in an unconscious way. Leon excavates a mental state in which reality, an ex-reality, and a wished for reality converge.
Approximate running time: 60 minutes