Argentine play explores prison life for women and marginalized genders

Directed by award-winning playwright and director Lola Arias, ‘The Days Out There’ heads to Europe end of June

Former prisoners Yoseli Arias and Ignacio Rodriguez pose for a picture in the seats of the "Presidente Alvear" theatre, before starting the play "The Days Out There", in Buenos Aires, Argentina June 7, 2024. REUTERS/Cristina Sille

“The past haunts you and the future never arrives,” six actors sing on stage in The Days Out There, an Argentine musical that explores the lives of incarcerated women and transgender people during and after their time in jail.

The play, by 47-year-old writer and director Lola Arias, who won the prestigious International Ibsen Award, is heading to Europe at the end of June. It’s part of a wider project with companion film Reas that arose from a workshop Arias gave in a women’s prison.

It is acted by the former inmates themselves, who look back at their time in jail and the challenges of adapting to life outside. They were jailed for crimes including fraud, robbery, drug trafficking, and prostitution.

For Arias, prisons may not always be the best solution.

“Many times prison is simply a storage space for people who are excluded from society,” she said in an interview.

“That is part of what the film and the play tell in their ways because they question the need for prisons, why prisons exist, and how we could imagine a different justice system.”

The director wanted to look at the bonds of solidarity built up in prison, moving away from traditional stories of violence in jail centered on cisgender men.

She said she also chose to focus on women and transgender inmates because of the unique “gender problems” they faced.

“Trans women who engage in sex work are detained without reason by police and are left in police stations for days. Trans men are also often treated with suspicion,” she said.

The protagonists tell their stories through song and dance, incorporating rock, cumbia, and bachata music.

Ignacio Rodríguez, a trans man who was jailed for nine years, said the project had been life-changing, giving him a reason to build towards the future.

“That is what we want to share and transmit: empathy, fellowship, companionship, love, despite all that one may go through,” said Rodríguez, who formed a rock band and began studying law in prison.

Yoseli Arias, 28, who was in prison for over four years, said in an interview in the theater dressing room, with her baby nearby, that she hoped the play would spur thought about what prison life was really like.

“It is a story told by us, of our own life and experience and of what we would like the future to look like: just to be treated like ordinary people.”

“The Days Out There” will be showing at two dozen theaters around Europe starting in Avignon, France.


You may also be interested in: Argentine playwright and director Lola Arias wins 2024 Ibsen Award

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