A cascade of clothes falls on to an empty stage. A woman in her early twenties emerges from the mountain of fabric and picks out a pair of jeans. She tries them on and walks to the front of the stage approaching the audience with her hands in her pockets:

Facing the audience, the woman plays a frantic guitar solo. Meanwhile, five other youngsters cross the stage and start rummaging through the pile of clothes (see Figure 4, p. 78). The performers throw the pieces of fabric into the air in an uneasy fight with the costumes of the past. This is the opening scene of Mi vida después. Lola Arias's production was premiered in Buenos Aires in March 2009 at the Teatro Nacional Sarmiento. The first time I attended this performance was on a warm Thursday in April 2009. The crowd that gathered at the front of the venue looked diverse. Apart from youngsters slightly over-conscious of their intellectual looks – classical habitués at Arias's productions – there were also middle-aged couples dressed up for a special night out, former activists, elders and groups of students sporting alternative neo-hippie outfits.