From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
El Árbitro de la Cicatriz (The Scar's Arbitrator, 2015)
This article covers the 2015 Argentine experimental theatre work interpreting the glitch. For Argentine adaptations, see South American adaptations.
An experimental theatre work staged in Buenos Aires treating Beach Surgery's glitch not as narrative rupture requiring resolution, but as a site demanding active *arbitration*. Where most adaptations attempt to finish the unfinishable seam between Half One and Half Two, El Árbitro inverts the problem: a costumed figure (ambiguously between Katita and mechanic) stands at the rupture and judges which half is "correct," using a hand-held coin.
Each nightly performance varied in outcome; the glitch "resolved" differently each show, with audience votes or the arbitrator's choice determining the verdict. Critical reception fractured: admirers praised it as philosophically honest—the most faithful adaptation to the novel's core impossibility; detractors dismissed it as collapsing meaning into participation gimmickry. [citation needed]
The piece influenced later participatory LARP cycles and the "adversarial resolution" school of fandom. A single performance was filmed ██ ; archival location and access status remain unconfirmed. [citation needed]