"I'm obsessed with you. Since you started working here, I can't stop thinking about you," is one of the confessions from one worker to another, a conversation with a special name: "Symbiosis." She seems unfazed. She's used to being bothered, to being attacked. In this conversation, which takes place in what appears to be the break room of any office in the country, prejudices and discriminations are expressed in an escalating manner, reminiscent of Carla Zúñiga's dramatic style. "Symbiosis Helena Alegría Gallardo" is the name of the play – funded by the Performing Arts Fund, call for 2025 – which premieres next Wednesday, May 27th, and will have only four performances at Teatro Sidarte. Directed by Gustavo Carrasco and featuring Francisca Márquez and Sofía Fajardo, the play portrays two women who, within the framework of workplace formality, delve into their prejudices, fears, and then aggression towards another woman who lives a different life. As director Gustavo Carrasco points out, the play's arrival on the stage is due to its multiple thematic layers. "Carla's text raises questions not only about HIV, but also about that intolerance that is presented as common sense, as genuine concern, as a favor being done to you. I am interested in the mechanism of her dramaturgy, two people in a work environment where what is said and what is left unsaid have the same weight. Directing this play is an exercise in listening, in creating the stage conditions for that escalation to unfold without underlining it," he says. Women living with HIV and "serophobia." Carla Zúñiga's play originated from a dramatic creation workshop developed during 2020 at M100. It was part of the "Sidario Cycle," where a group of artists was invited to reflect on the experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS from different perspectives. This cycle, the director recounts, emerged during the pandemic, "asking us about the impact of HIV on current Chilean and Latin American dramaturgy." Its staging today, he adds, "takes on even more meaning, at a time when HIV prevention programs are being cut and progress is being reversed in protecting against harassment in the workplace." As Carla Zúñiga explains, in her writing, she chose to focus on the experiences of women living with the virus "because, until then, I had seen some Chilean plays that talked about HIV, but not many, and almost all of them addressed HIV from the perspective of homosexuality. So I thought it might be interesting to talk about it from the perspective of women, and how women talk about it." Ultimately, the play addresses the issue of "serophobia," or fear and animosity towards people living with HIV, a perspective that, according to Carla Zúñiga, expands because, in her words, "although it talks about HIV, what it really talks about is freedom, about being able to name things as they are, and how that can be a problem, even a pain for a person who wants the opposite." Thus, the company's approach seeks to position itself within the map of Latin American seropositive dramaturgy, opening up space for new ways of addressing these discriminations. Details: "Symbiosis Helena Alegría Gallardo" will be presented from Wednesday, May 27th, to Saturday, May 30th, at 7:30 PM in the María Elena Duvauchelle hall at Teatro Sidarte, located at Ernesto Pinto Lagarrigue 131, Recoleta. Tickets are on sale under the "pay what you can" system: $4,000, $6,000, and $8,000 through Ticketplus. All information about the play is available on the company's social media accounts: @ciasiamesas and @teatrosidarte.