15 Alternative Theater Plays in Buenos Aires to Discover This October

With: Patricio Aramburu, Diego Velázquez. Directed by: Mariano Pensotti.

The story intertwines two lives: Julián Vidal, a mountaineer determined to finish the climb that killed his father in 1989, and Manuel Rojas, an actor cast years later to play him in a film. On stage, they coexist as mirror and reflection, reality and fiction, father and son, memory and myth. An intense play about inheritance, absence, and how time melts both glaciers and family illusions.

Where: Dumont 4040. Tickets, here.

With: Santiago Gobernori, Federico León, Beatriz Rjland. Directed by: Federico León.

A group of workshop participants undergo extreme rules, rituals, and tests in search of a radical form of creation. Discipline turns into penance, exercises into brutal challenges, and the process into a living laboratory where anything can happen. Inspired by León’s own workshops, the play puts him on stage to experience his own method firsthand. The result: an unpredictable, fierce, and fascinating show where theater becomes an essay on the limits between teaching, play, and sacrifice.

Where: Zelaya 3134. Tickets, here.

With: Seba Raffa, Gonzalo Espínola. Directed by: Julio Mandel.

Víctor and Juan are two security guards used to protecting banks and ministries. Now, they must watch over something entirely different: a Caravaggio exhibition. Between their habitual roughness and the unexpected sensitivity that art awakens, emerges a dark comedy about power, desire, and the possibility of seeing differently what we think we already know.

Where: Teatro del Pueblo. Tickets, here.

With: Gerardo Porión, Carolina Saade. Directed by: Gustavo Tarrío.

A pleasure cruise across the ocean turns into a lonely and traumatic return. Using shadow theater, objects, songs, and visible machinery, the play reconstructs a journey marked by absence and pain. “Menos detalles” is a contemporary, hallucinatory fairy tale blending humor, tragedy, and fantasy, inspired by real events. An impossible story to tell completely — someone will always interrupt with a “please, fewer details.”

Where: Galpón de Guevara. Tickets, here.

With: Lucas Delgado, Manuela Fernandez Vivian, Damián Smajo. Directed by: Martín Mir.

December 2001. As Argentina erupts in its most severe social and political crisis, an upper-class couple seeks escape from chaos. But a car accident forces them to spend the night in a rented room. What seems like a pause becomes a battlefield: she, a renowned actress; he, a meat entrepreneur; and Nelson, the room’s owner, confront secrets and tensions mirroring the turmoil outside. Between insomnia, confessions, and an oppressive atmosphere, the play captures a nation — and a couple — on the brink of collapse.

Where: Teatro Vera Vera. Tickets, here.

With: Victoria Carreras, Cristian Sabaz & ensemble. Directed by: Mariano Dossena.

Written by sexologist Walter Ghedin, the play explores desire as a deceptive mirror — seductive, intense, but laced with illusion. A long-term couple, trapped in routine and disillusionment, rediscovers desire when a mysterious woman appears across the street. Windows turn into voyeuristic screens, gestures into hidden messages, and incomplete conversations into secrets demanding to be exposed. In this game where the private becomes spectacle, each character must face their own truths.

Where: El Tinglado. Tickets, here.

With: Débora Longobardi, Ale Naviliat, Lolo Avegliano, César Aramis. Directed by: Sandra Franzen.

A bar, four comedians, and a strange invitation no one fully understands. This piece blends stand-up, theater, and absurd humor as the characters navigate suspicion, confession, and laughter. “Ensopados” is a gourmet stand-up show — a slow-cooked mix of tenderness, mystery, and surprise.

Where: Teatro El Cristal. Tickets, here.

With: Oscar Souto, Marcelo Saltal, Verónica Kamlacz, Pablo Olarticochea, Gisela Fiordelmondo. Directed by: Gustavo Moscona.

It’s 2023. Mario dreams of robbing a bank; Lucía wants to adopt a child. Between bureaucracy and frustration, they end up welcoming three siblings into their home — Prince, La Turca, and Cerebrito. What begins as an experiment turns into a tender and funny family adventure about loss, renewal, and the beauty of unexpected encounters.

Where: Teatro Polonia. Tickets, here.

With: Ananda Li Bredice, Pablo D’Elía, Julieta Greco, Marcos Ribas, Macarena Suárez. Directed by: Pablo D’Elía.

A choral mosaic intertwining creative crises, romantic doubts, and actors trapped in a casting. Reality blurs with performance as each character questions who they really are. Between reflections on love, identity, and art, “Mordida” becomes an emotional journey through the fictions we inhabit.

Where: Patio de Actores. Tickets, here.

With: Liza Karen Taylor. Directed by: Patricio Suárez.

More than a play, it’s a scenic essay on contemporary solitude. A woman, alone in her rented studio, tries to make sense of her emotional and professional instability while rehearsing justifications for her isolation. Blending theater, dance, and visual arts, it’s a poetic survival manual about medicated individualism and the search for collective imagination.

Where: Espacio Callejón. Tickets, here.

With: José Luis Ferrer, Brenda Pisanu, Diego Enrique, Yan Androszczuk, Gabriel Scanga, Guadalupe Pita Monzón, Matías Pugliese, Gabriela San. Directed by: Sergio Falcón.

December 21, 2001. The president has resigned; Argentina is adrift. Who’s in charge? What’s happening inside the Casa Rosada? With biting humor, this play turns a painful historical moment into a delirious satire exposing institutional fragility and the country’s uncanny ability to turn tragedy into comedy.

Where: Timbre 4. Tickets, here.

With: Tomás Castaño, Pilar Rodríguez Rey, Vero Romero, Andrés Gavaldá. Directed by: Ignacio Pozzi.

A couple of writers in the midst of an endless breakup becomes the subject of their own play. She’s done; he’s still writing. Their fictional characters start invading the scene, blurring lines between life and literature. Is it a comedy — or not? The answer unfolds live, between laughter, irony, and the melancholy of what never ends.

Where: Teatro Polonia. Tickets, here. 

With: Matías Coronel, Mathias Percat, Vicente Pérez, Julián Vila Graca. Directed by: Leticia Coronel.

A stage ritual to remember a lost friend. What begins as a private act becomes communal — an invitation for the audience to join in remembrance, love, and presence. With tenderness and honesty, the play reminds us that memory never fades, friendship survives absence, and theater itself is an act of collective love.

Where: Teatro El Extranjero. Tickets, here.

With: Carlo Argento, Herve Segata, Franco Riedel, Luna Sciutti. Directed by: Pablo D’Elía.

Trapped in an elevator, Martín and Hermes embody a clash of worlds: one flees from love’s intensity, the other tries to capture it in words. Fate forces them to confront fear, desire, and the inevitability of loss. A poetic, intimate play where a confined space becomes a metaphor for emotional vertigo.

Where: El Método Kairós. Tickets, here.

With: María Alejandra. Directed by: María Alejandra & Jada Sirkin.

Monte Chingolo, late 1980s–early 1990s. Life unfolds amid poverty, violence, pharmaceuticals, and broken dreams. A young mother and her daughters coexist with marginal characters — a drunk cyclist, a wandering hippie, a bus driver with a crime on his conscience. Decades later, a sister tries to reconstruct who Sandra — nicknamed “La Oso” — really was. With humor, poetry, and irony, the play draws an intimate biodrama about vulnerable childhoods, femicides, love, and resistance — reminding us that memory is also an act of survival.

Where: Mu Trinchera Boutique. Tickets, here.