I would like to go back to the day they announced the closing of the Arrecife Study Theater (TEA) and not see the news.
Undoubtedly, something difficult to digest for those of us who had the opportunity to go through its classrooms, and for all those who in some way saw in the theater a way to grow.
I haven't set foot in the TEA for years, but I still have the vivid image of Salvador bringing order to the rehearsals before the end of the course, Elena's contagious laughter running through every corner of the stage, Óscar's kindness every time we crossed the door, and the first classes when I was a few years old with Heidi and Marga. And of course, many of my colleagues with whom I was lucky enough to enjoy every rehearsal, every chained improvisation, every circle of trust, every afternoon. Without a doubt, these are difficult moments to disperse and forget, much less when you have so much to thank those people who directly or indirectly have helped you in your life.
Hopefully we could say that the TEA has only faced this situation, but the truth is that it has suffered the neglect and abandonment of the political class of Lanzarote. I still remember when the classes were held in what is now the Insular Theater, I remember how they wanted to get us out of there in exchange for nothing, regardless of whether we were children or adults with a hobby, regardless of whether we were people on an island that asked for respect for culture. I remember how on more than one occasion they were late in paying the subsidy, and how despite that our teachers went every afternoon because they cared about what they did and knew that we were their true impulse. We resisted, with a change of address to Altavista and we continued, in the best way they had taught us, taking the theater to the street looking for works that would make us enjoy, laugh, get excited and above all reflect.
Today the theater closes, it closes because it was never a friend of politicians, because it never had preferential treatment on the island of the accused, it closes fed up after having endured for years and fought against the unethical and aesthetic of those who call themselves public servants, servants incapable of managing what belongs to everyone and much less taking responsibility for their actions because, coincidentally, whatever the year, whoever is in charge, they are always inherited legacies.
With the TEA, part of what we have been will go away, part of our past will go away and unfortunately a bright future will be lost for all those people who could have the opportunity to learn in an exceptionally different way in a place like the TEA.
Laurence Olivier, a British actor, said that in a small or large city, a theater is the visible sign of its culture, today the Arrecife City Council suffocates it and buries it.
Today the curtain falls, hopefully we will never forget it.
By Carlos Pérez-Cejudo Gónzalez, TEA alumnus
