Latin American Plays

by Sebastian Doggart

  SD: Who are your favourite Latin American playwrights of the last 50 years?

  GG: I couldn’t make an exhaustive choice. For different reasons I would redeem an infinity of works, plays by the Mexicans Elena Garro, Vicente Leñero, Emilio Carballido; by the Cuban José Triana; by the Uruguayan Carlos Manuel Varela; by the Venezuelans Rodolfo Santana, Isaac Chocron, Elisa Lerer; by the young Costa Rican Ana Istarú; and by many Argentines: Roberto Arlt, Armando Discépolo, Roberto Cossa, Daniel Veronese and Patricia Zangaro.

  SD: What, if anything, does the collective term ‘Latin American theatre’ mean to you?

  GG: This term contains many differences and some fundamental similarities. Latin America is a continent which, apart from Brazil, has the same language, although every country has its own history and idiosyncrasies. This has been translated to theatrical activity, where important differences can be observed: some countries have a very strong theatrical tradition, like Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, while in others, the development of the theatre is less notable, as in Bolivia or Paraguay. But what unites Latin American Theatre is that it belongs to countries which are up against tough economic conditions, acute social inequalities and subjugation to the international financial centres. This, then, conditions and characterises the themes, the type of investigation, the means of production, and even determines our aesthetic. Latin American theatre means a sense of belonging, wide thematic freedom, variety of forms, and search.

  This was a faxed interview conducted in Spanish in January 1996.

  ORCHIDS IN THE MOONLIGHT

  by Carlos Fuentes

  Production Notes

  1)Both women are of an indefinite age, between thirty and sixty years old. At some moments they are closer to the first age; at others, to the second. Throughout the play, DOLORES dresses like a stylised Mexican campesina: plaits gathered round her head in a bun tied together by rose-coloured ribbons, bougainvilleas behind her ears, rustic clothes made of percale, ankle-length boots and a shawl. MARIA, on the other hand, changes costume several times. The physical characteristics of the women are not fixed. Ideally, the roles will be played by María Félix1 and Dolores del Río.2 Even more ideally, they will alternate in the roles. In their absence, they can be played by actresses who are like them: tall, slender, dark, with distinctively sculpted bones, especially in the face: high and shining cheekbones, sensual lips quick to laughter and anger, defiant chins and combative eyebrows. This does not prevent the perversion, if necessary, that the roles should be played by two rosy-cheeked, blond, plump women. As a last resort, and in the absence of all the above-mentioned possibilities, the protagonists can be two men.

  2)The set is conceived as a territory shared and constantly disputed by the two women. MARIA identifies with the style of certain objects and decorations: white bear skins, a white satin divan, a wall of mirrors. DOLORES stresses her possession of rustic Mexican furniture, paper flowers and clay piggy banks. Each possesses, on opposite sides of the set, a small altar dedicated to herself on which are photographs, posters of old films, little statues and other prizes. The common territory is a vast wardrobe upstage, made up of mobile clothes rails like the ones found in hotels and receptions. Hanging there are all types of clothes imaginable, from crinoline to sarong, from the customary national dress of Mexico to Emmanuel Ungaro’s latest collection. They are all costumes that the two actresses have used during their long screen careers. Downstage left is a metallic, prison-like door. Centre-stage, in front of the wardrobes, is a white toilet with a white telephone on the seat. C.F., 1982

  Orchids in the Moonlight was written in 1982. This translation was first staged by the Southern Development Trust on 9 August 1992 in the Teatro Nacional, Havana, Cuba, and then had its British premiere at the Richard Demarco Gallery Theatre, Edinburgh on 17 August 1992.

  MARIA

  Tanya Stephan

  DOLORES

  Tami Hoffman

  FAN

  Simon Taylor

  Director Sebastian Doggart

  Designer Clare Brew

  Producers Pippa Harris & Ian J. Clarke

  Characters

  MARIA

  DOLORES

  THE FAN

  NUBIAN SLAVE GIRLS

  MARIACHIS

  Setting

  Venice, the day Orson Welles died.3

  The area lit is downstage centre. DOLORES sits next to a walnut colonial table, covered by a worn paper tablecloth, earthenware crockery from Tlaquepaque, paper flowers and a jug of fresh water. DOLORES stares intently at the audience for thirty seconds, first quite challengingly, arching her eyebrows; but gradually losing her self-confidence, lowering her gaze and looking to her left and right as if she were expecting someone. Eventually, her hands trembling, she pours herself a cup of tea, raises it to drink, looks back at the audience, again first challengingly, then in terror. She drops the cup noisily and stifles a piercing scream, the theatricality of which is drowned out by real tears. She groans several times, throwing her head back against the chair, raising one hand to her brow, covering her mouth with the other, trembling. From between the clothes rails upstage MARIA appears, slowly, moving with the enormous contained tension of a panther. Her dark flowing hair falls over the fur collar of a gown of thick brocade, which looks copied from the czar’s robes in Boris Godunov. MARIA walks towards DOLORES, adopting an air of pragmatism; she arranges her hair, puts on the gown and kisses DOLORES from behind. DOLORES responds to MARIA’s embrace by stroking her hands and trying to move her face closer towards her.

  MARIA. It’s very early. What’s wrong?

  DOLORES. They didn’t recognise me.

  MARIA. Again?

  DOLORES. I was sitting here having my breakfast, and they didn’t recognise me.

  MARIA sighs and kneels down to pick up DOLORES’ cup and breakfast plate. The helpless trembling of DOLORES’ voice is replaced by a very faint tone of supremacy. MARIA’s presence is enough to cause this.

  DOLORES. They recognised me before.

  MARIA. Before?

  DOLORES looks scornfully at MARIA kneeling down.

  DOLORES. They asked for my autograph.

  MARIA. Before.

  DOLORES. I couldn’t go out to a restaurant without a crowd gathering to look at me, undressing me with their eyes, asking for my autograph . . .

  MARIA. We haven’t gone out. (DOLORES looks at MARIA, silently interrogating her.) I mean we’re alone.

  DOLORES. Where?

  MARIA. Here. In our apartment. Our apartment in Venice.

  She pronounces the proper name in an atrocious imitation of an English accent: Ve-Nice, Vi- Nais.

  DOLORES (correcting her patiently). Vé-nice, Vé-Niss. How do you say Niza in French?

  MARIA. Nice.

  DOLORES. Well, now you add a Ve. Ve-Nice.

  MARIA. The point is, we’re alone here and we haven’t gone out. Don’t confuse me.

  Amazed, DOLORES crouches down to get closer to MARIA’s face.

  DOLORES. Can’t you see them in front there, sitting down looking at us?

  MARIA. Who?

  DOLORES stretches out her arm dramatically towards the audience. But her wounded and secretive voice seems out of tune with her choice of words.

  DOLORES. Them. The audience. Our audience. Our faithful audience who have paid in ready money to see us and applaud us. Can’t you see them sitting in front there?

  MARIA laughs, checks herself so as not to offend DOLORES, tosses her head and starts to take off DOLORES’ Indian sandals.

  MARIA. Let’s get dressed.

  DOLORES. I’m ready now.

  MARIA. No. I don’t want you to go out barefoot. (She puts her cheek next to DOLORES’ naked foot.) You hurt yourself last time.

  DOLORES. A thorn. That’s nothing. You took it out for me. I love it when you take care of me.

  MARIA kisses DOLORES’ naked foot. DOLORES strokes MARIA’s head.

  DOLORES. Where are you going to take me today?<
br />
  MARIA. First promise me that you won’t go out barefoot again. You’re not a Xochimilco Indian. You’re a respectable lady who can hurt her feet if she goes out into the streets with no shoes on. Promise?

  DOLORES (nodding). Where are you going to take me today?

  MARIA. Where would you like to go?

  She starts to put some old-fashioned boots on DOLORES.

  DOLORES. Not to the studios.

  MARIA. To the film museum?

  DOLORES. No, no. It’s the same. They don’t recognise us. They say we’re not us.

  MARIA. So what? We don’t have to be announced.

  DOLORES. They just don’t treat us the way they did before, they don’t reserve the best seats for us . . .

  MARIA. So what? We sit in the darkness and we see ourselves on the screen. That’s what matters.

  DOLORES. But they don’t see us now.

  MARIA. That’s better. That way we see ourselves like the others see us. Before we couldn’t. Remember? Before we were divided, looking at ourselves on the screens like ourselves while the audience was divided, wondering: shall we watch them on the screen or shall we watch them watching themselves on the screen?

  DOLORES. I think the most intelligent preferred to watch us while we were watching ourselves.

  MARIA. Yes? Why?

  DOLORES. Well, because they could see the film again many times, and many years after the opening night. On the other hand, they could only see us that night, the night of the première. Remember? Wilshire Boulevard . . .

  MARIA. The Champs Elysées . . .

  DOLORES. The spotlights, the photographers, the autograph hunters . . .

  MARIA. Our cleavages, our pearls, our white foxfurs.

  DOLORES. Our fans.

  MARIA (interrupted from her dream). Our elephants?

  DOLORES (condescendingly). Our admirers, our fanatics, f-a-n-s.

  MARIA. Sorry. I don’t speak gringo.

  DOLORES. Ah, you’re jealous of my Hollywood, it’s always been like that.

  MARIA. Oye! I’ve never had to dress up as a Comanche Indian and speak Tomahawk English like you did. God forbid! Anyway, how can I be jealous of you for something that doesn’t exist? My success was in Paris, señorita, and that does exist. It’s existed for two thousand years. Look out of the window and tell me where Hollywood is. We’ve spent twenty years here . . .

  DOLORES (urgently). Shhhh, shhhh. Forget about Hollywood, forget about Paris, remember where we’re living now, we have Venice . . .

  MARIA (stopping herself, closing her eyes) We will always have Venice.4

  DOLORES. If you put your head out of the window you can see the Grand Canal. Yes, the passing gondolas and motorboats, here from our apartment in the Palazzo Mocenigo which was Lord Byron’s palace in Venice. Look, tell me if I’m right.

  MARIA (without opening her eyes). Yes, you’re right. We’re in Venecia. We will always have Venecia.

  DOLORES (happily). What more do you want? Do you want more?

  MARIA (without opening her eyes). No. This is a good place to die. There are no more ripples on the water. The whole city is a ghost. Don’t ask us for proof that we exist. Here we’ll never know if we’ve died or not. Venecia.

  DOLORES. Well, that’s cleared up. Then no-one can see us. Yes? I’m right.

  MARIA (opening her eyes). Today we see ourselves the way the others see us on the screen. We are sitting quietly amongst the others, very decent and well-behaved, ya?

  MARIA stops putting on DOLORES’ shoes and gets up, visibly irritated, takes a black cigar and lights it. DOLORES watches her with curiosity.

  DOLORES. How upset you get by your own dreams.

  MARIA. They’re nightmares when I have them with you.

  DOLORES. You’d better not close your eyes again. You look so helpless, you poor thing.

  MARIA (laughs). Behave yourself, woman, please. We can’t go on playing fickle vamps. We’re not what we were. Now we are decent and grown up. Don’t forget that.

  DOLORES retreats and continues to put on her boots hastily and precisely. MARIA drops her lit cigar into DOLORES’ breakfast teapot without her noticing.

  MARIA (brashly). It’s the end of the orgy, Borgy.

  She heads upstage rapidly and picks out some trousers and a jacket, both emerald green. While she dresses, DOLORES finishes putting on her shoes. Then she takes a rococo dressing mirror and tries to look at the reflection of her feet the way other women look at their faces.

  DOLORES. You don’t have to lecture me. I’ve always been decent.

  MARIA. Well I haven’t and I don’t regret it.

  DOLORES. It’s not a question of regrets. Nobody chooses her cradle.

  MARIA. Nor her bed either.

  DOLORES. Do you think so?

  MARIA (laughs). If I’ve slept in a hundred beds in my life, I haven’t chosen more than ten of them.

  DOLORES. And the other ninety?

  MARIA (directly). They were called hunger, ambition, or violence.

  She appears dressed and gives a twirl like a professional model.

  MARIA. What do you think?

  DOLORES. Divine. You look like luxury asparagus.

  MARIA (laughs and turns towards her wall of mirrors). I dress in the colour of your envy, darling, to spare you from mental exertion. Don’t wither on me, bougainvillea.

  She puts her jewelry on in front of the mirror. The serpent theme is predominant: bracelets, rings, a necklace like a cobra coiled around MARIA’s neck.

  DOLORES. Who gave you those jewels? Your lover or your husband?

  MARIA (with supreme insolence). Both.

  DOLORES. You haven’t told me where you’re going to take me.

  MARIA. Guess.

  DOLORES (suddenly frightened, she stops looking at her feet in the mirror). No . . . again . . . again? . . . No . . . you don’t . . .

  MARIA. You’re right. Unless you see me dressed in black, we’re not going to a funeral.

  DOLORES (violently). Give me the paper.

  She stretches out her hand. She drops the mirror. The glass breaks. MARIA reacts slowly, with repressed anger and caricatured resignation.

  MARIA. Seven years bad luck. It’s good to know we won’t live that long. Although that would be bad luck: to stay here together for seven more years.

  DOLORES. Don’t change the subject. Give me the paper.

  MARIA. What for? You know his life by heart.

  DOLORES. It’s not that. It’s Mamá.

  MARIA. Mamá?

  DOLORES. You’re very careless. You leave the newspaper lying around anywhere, on the toilet; Mamá comes in to . . . Mamá comes in and reads it.

  MARIA. So what?

  DOLORES. You know Mamá can’t stand finding out about somebody else’s death. I’ve told you to . . .

  MARIA. Somebody else? Oye, chiquita, there is no way she would read the paper to find out about her own death. It’s tough to snuff Mamá, but not that tough.

  DOLORES. I’ve told you to tear up the paper and flush it down the toilet. Mamá . . .

  MARIA. I doubt if she will survive her own death.

  DOLORES. No, it’s even more painful than that. She may survive you and me, she may survive us.

  MARIA (continuing). Although who knows; that sly old fox may even beat us at that: not surviving us, but surviving herself. There are mothers like that.

  DOLORES. Shhhh, don’t let her hear you, please. What if she . . . ?

  MARIA. Don’t worry, little one. The dead person is younger than Mamá.

  DOLORES (relieved). Ah, then she will be happy.

  MARIA. Sure. Let her find out. It’s not she who should be unhappy, but you.

  DOLORES (naively) Did I know him?

  MARIA. How sure you are that he was a man.

  DOLORES. Did I know her then?

  MARIA. Right the first time, wrong the second.

  DOLORES. I knew him. (Upset) Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know any more. Let me ima
gine. (She stands up) It depresses me to find out that an old lover has died before me. People will think that he was older than me. And I’ve never had a lover older than me. I won’t be anyone’s widow. I told all my men: Our life began the moment we met . . . (Sings) . . . el mismo instante en que nos conocimos.5 (She walks to the white divan) Now I’m going to rest. Bring me some cotton wool for my eyes, please.

  She reclines on the white divan. MARIA offers her the cotton wool. DOLORES covers her closed eyelids with the cotton wool.

  DOLORES. Hey you, don’t you want to rest before going out.

  MARIA. I don’t need to.

  DOLORES. Sorry. I forgot. How many months did you spend at that rest cure in Switzerland?

  MARIA. It wasn’t rest, I’ve already told you. It was a nightmare. I had the nightmare of spending God knows how many years taking care of you, watching you spend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with the blinds drawn, flat on your back with cotton wool on your peepers . . .

  DOLORES. What a strange way of speaking. There is a bad education.

  MARIA. Shut up. Watching you spend Tuesdays and Thursdays in a tub full of ice cubes, taking care of you, you taking care of yourself and me wasting away my life so that on Saturdays and Sundays I could unleash you to run like a gazelle through the meadows, and everyone could say: How does she do it? If she had her début in 1925! She danced with Don Porfirio!6 She learnt Spanish with La Malinche!7 Sir Walter Raleigh was her godfather!

  DOLORES (coldly). I get very tired. I only go out on Sundays now, to lunches in the country. Never at night any more. You know that, lovely Mariquita.

  Pause.

  They don’t recognise you either.

  MARIA remains cold, statuesque, standing in front of her mirrors.

  MARIA. Insult me. (Silence from DOLORES.) Go on. You have my permission. Take revenge on me. (Obstinate silence from DOLORES.) Call me what you like. Use those sickly names that I hate so much. Call me lovely Mariquita, Marucha, Marionette, Marujita, Mariposa, María Bonita, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, call me . . .