The writer Juan Villoro has premiered No fue penal: una enemistad en dos tiempos, directed by Antonio Castro and starring José María de Tavira and Martín Altomaro. It runs at the Foro Lucerna in Mexico City from October 6 through November 25, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 20:30.
The plot builds on an earlier Villoro story inspired by the injury that ended the career of Alberto Onofre, a Chivas player, in the final training session before the 1970 Mexico World Cup. According to El Universal, the play centers on two former friends who reunite without ever seeing each other: one is a coach fighting relegation, the other is the video referee who can judge him. For Mexican readers, football is the common language in which many families argue, and here that language takes the stage.
Villoro's intent comes through in several interviews: the author says he wants to ask who is guilty and who is innocent within a tension of friendship and enmity. El Universal reports that the dialogue unfolds without the actors touching or sharing the stage, one in the technical area and the other in his referee's room, connected only by what they say to each other. Antonio Castro told Reforma that the play also addresses the country's violence through football, and that the comedy carries a moral sense.
The actors arrived with a feel for the pitch: Martín Altomaro told Reforma that when the ball rolls or the curtain rises, nothing else exists. Villoro, winner of the 2026 Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language, is the author of Dios es redondo and a trilogy of books on the ball, which gives the production its own literary archive.
The run closes on November 25, the week the 2026 World Cup kicks off in North America. In the meantime, Mexico City audiences have about forty days of seats to see how an imaginary match is judged live.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.
