Someone told an actress friend that she must see a Rafael Spregelburd play while visiting Buenos Aires.
Hearing that she was there, Spregelburd came out to greet her after the show. His wife was unwell and he had to leave quickly; but in the rain on a narrow strip of pavement, exhausted or perhaps electrified by two hours on stage, and hungry, he began to tell us all about Buenos Aires’s independent theatre scene …

After the great crisis of 2001, a group of theatre directors set up their company in a garage, using the same space for classes and performances. Every week, from Thursday to Sunday evening, a series of plays is put on, running as long as there is an audience each week. The sets are minimal, and the seating is borrowed from the neighbours. It’s the script and the acting that matter. Little by little, some companies thrive and take over adjacent houses, other garages …

An hour later, on the same narrow sidewalk in the rain, I asked him if I could take his picture some time. He suggested we meet on a Sunday afternoon, just before the start of his new play, ‘Apatrida’.
Buttoning his suit, he shared the stage with Zypce, a musician who makes his own instruments.