Madrid, Plaza de Colon, Fernan Gomez Theater. Several minutes of deathly silence had to pass before a spectator started with timid applause that almost no one seconded. It is rare for something like this to happen when a play ends, but the oven for buns was not there after two magnificent Canarian actresses, transmuted into Iraqi and Afghan respectively, left in a panic the stage -a tent, actually- that recreated the Moria refugee camp, on Lesbos. His characters, inspired by true stories, fled from the fire that two years ago swept through that human rights dump, where Europe sets up a wall so that those who flee from death do not make its streets ugly. It is the same Europe that now welcomes without fuss, and even with a touch of pride, the thousands of Ukrainians that Putin’s beast has kicked out of their country with a clean bombshell. The contrast is unbearable, but it is understood: This war has broken out at our doors and directly affects our pockets. That is why it is so hygienic that through the theater someone punches us in the stomach; at least so that we can’t plead ignorance to youan outrageous discrimination.
In Moria-2, the other improvised housing monstrosity after that fire, today more than seven thousand people are still crowded in conditions that almost none of us would be able to bear. Or yes, because the complexity of the human being includes a very curious characteristic, which is its amazing ability to adapt to face extreme situations. The same ability, by the way, that allowed me to leave watching ‘Moria’ the other night on the verge of tears and take only a few minutes to gobble down a grilled octopus in a trendy restaurant, in which the priority -in some cases the obsession- of a good part of the public is to be seen. And they get it. But the refugees from Moria, no; it’s like they’re invisible. I was wondering where that leaves us. And I didn’t like the answer. But that’s what theater is also for: to make people uncomfortable. Thank you, Moria.