'Crossroads. A Distant Mirror'

After many years of closure, the theatre is about to open its doors to the public once more. The old Usher waits in anticipation for the arrival of the Patron — the benefactor who built the theatre and who, for mysterious, strange, and never fully explained reasons, did not attend its inauguration and was never acknowledged by the city to which he donated this temple of art. Some theatres are buildings; others are memory. This work by Cirilo Leal, directed by Telesforo Rodríguez, belongs to the second category: it does not merely tell a story — it awakens a place that has been silent for far too long. The piece sets us inside an old performance space on the verge of reopening, as if the building itself were taking a deep breath before speaking again. That moment — the threshold between what was and what is yet to come — is the territory where the play unfolds. In this suspended space, three figures appear, each representing a different way of relating to culture and to time: an Usher who has watched over the theatre for years, a Patron who built it without ever receiving recognition, and a Trickster who sees opportunity in forgetting. These are not abstract characters: they are forces that clash, argue, and defend opposing visions of what deserves to be preserved and what can be lost without consequence. The play turns that conflict into a question that cuts to the heart of anyone who feels part of a community: what do we do with the places that have given us our identity? What happens when a space that has witnessed so many lives risks disappearing or becoming something unrecognizable? The theatre here is not a stage — it is a symbol. A reminder that memory is not an antiquated concept, but a form of resistance against the speed with which everything changes. Leal's text plays with the tension between legacy and speculation, between care and abandonment, between those who believe culture is a common good and those who see it as an exploitable resource. But it does so without solemnity, without turning reflection into a lecture. The play moves with humor, with irony, with small cracks through which emotions seep that anyone will recognize: the frustration of being unseen, the need to belong, the feeling that there are stories worth telling even if no one has listened to them yet. The cast — Héctor Armas, Inés Rodríguez, Wame Gutiérrez, Eva González, and Leticia Torres — brings an energy that keeps the conflict from feeling distant. Their performances do not seek the detachment of classical theatre, but the closeness of people speaking from a real place, from an experience that could belong to anyone who has ever felt that something important is about to change. Their characters doubt, contradict themselves, feel, and defend themselves — and in that humanity lies the audience's way in. The work is also a tribute to La Laguna's theatrical heritage, though not through nostalgia but through reclamation. It reminds us that cultural spaces are not relics, but places where bonds are forged, ideas debated, and new ways of seeing the world are learned. At a time when many gathering spaces are disappearing or being transformed, this piece asserts the value of a theatre as a point of resistance, a refuge, a territory where a community recognizes itself. The Patron's return, after years of absence, adds a thread of mystery that runs through the entire work. Why did he never attend the inauguration? What happened to leave his gesture unacknowledged? What does it mean to return now, as the theatre is about to be reborn? That incomplete story — that secret never fully revealed — turns the play into an experience that invites curiosity, interpretation, and a search for meaning. Ultimately, this piece does not only celebrate the reopening of a theatre: it celebrates the possibility of beginning again.