The Best “Off-Broadway” Plays In Buenos Aires

Although the International Theater Festival in Buenos Aires has come and gone, the shows have not stopped. While the more well known plays are staged on Avenida Corrientes, the Buenos Aires equivalent to Broadway, the independent (off-Broadway) community is concentrated in Abasto, Almagro and San Telmo. Here, one can watch a piece of performance art in the back of a café, at a restaurant or even in a factory.  To help you navigate the options, we’ve selected our new and old “OFF” favorites.

Mi Vida Despues

Written by upcoming playwright Lola Arias and her cast, this is experimental theater at its best.  The work is based on the lives of Lola Arias and her fellow castmates and presents each individual’s familial experience with the dictadura.  The brother of one actress is the child of a desaparecido and the father of another was a guerrilla.  The cast collaborated on the script, which is updated to reflect real time changes in their lives.  The six children of the 70’s piece together their parents’ and their own lives “since” for the audience with family photos, videos and original songs.

At La Carpintéria Teatro
858 Jean Jaures

La Isla Desierta

This play, by Teatro Ciego, is in its 11th year and currently showing at the Ciudad Cultural Konex. The first of  Teatros Ciego’s many works, La Isla Desierta plays with the standard theatre experience.  The play is performed in the dark and instead engages the senses with smells, sounds and touch.

Ciudad Cultural Konex
Sarmiento 3131

Intruders

Intuders, a new work by Benjamin Kunkel, is running at La Tertulia in Abasto and is the first English language play to premiere in the Buenos Aires Off-circuit. It’s a meta look at a playwright’s life, but Kunkel, a New York Times’ “Notable Book of the Year” winner, handles irony well enough and the expat audience appreciates the play’s dry humor.

La Tertulia
826 Gallo