Two rooms, almost identical, are separated in the middle of the stage. A young man and an old man are methodically sorting out the clutter as the narrator slowly comes on stage and begins to unfold the two  the story of the two timelines, the present and the future.

The whole story is about a young man who made a documentary about a young boy in a poor district of Buenos Aires. This succeeds in providing a starting point for his career, and he returns to Argentina from Germany after 30 years, revisiting the places and people of the time and trying to rebuild his relationships with friends and family.

By separating the set from the middle, director Mariano Pensotti has managed to present the protagonist’s two lives in the same space and time, thirty years apart, while the narrator switches between the two scenes and the two identities of the “protagonist’s wife” and the “protagonist’s daughter”. In the scenes, a young man, full of hope and determined to make a documentary for his dream, and an old man, who, after 30 years, returns to his hometown and can only regain a sense of existence by reminiscing and referring to the past. On one side, a young man unconcerned about the upcoming birth of his daughter, and on the other, an old an desperate to reconnect with the daughter he has not seen for 30 years.

In the two timelines, 2020, just before the epidemic; and 2050 when people in a world 30 years from now start to think that vegetables are poisonous and therefore only eat meat, and the Dutch people become unpopular refugees after being flooded by the sea. This projection of the future reveals humour on the one hand and a sense of sadness on the other. The entire second half of the play revolves around the documentary about the boy from the poorer neighbourhoods, as the young protagonist moves from stumbling upon the boy, approaching to help him, to finally being rejected nonetheless. While the older protagonist tries to continue his former pinnacle moments by finding someone to impersonate the boy for the shooting a sequel of the documentary.

However, in this pure Spanish performance  “Los Años”, the core of the play is not clear, as if it is trying to make a point but not knowing how to make it.

9/10