Out of the Wings

Ahí están los Tarahumaras (1993), José Triana

The Perfect Machine : ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 1 , ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 2 , ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 3 , ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 4

The Perfect Machine, translated by Catherine Boyle

ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 1

Context:

This is the beginning of the play. Her is trying to make dolls, while Him worries about the ominous presence of the Tarahumaras. Her does not understand or share his fear.

Sample text

HIM: (Half asleep.): Yes, here they are, the Tarahumaras … Here they are!
HER: (Whispering.): Darling. (She kisses him on the cheek.) Darling … What are you talking about? Who’s here …? I don’t understand!
HIM: (Annoyed.): Ah, leave me alone. Don’t wake me up, please. (Pause. He makes himself comfortable and takes out a pack of cards. He puts it on the table.) Can I have some water? (She stares at him. Smiles and holds out the glass.) Thank you. (He takes the glass and drinks.) Yuck, it tastes bitter.
HER:(She takes a drink of the water and sits on the floor and continues her work creating a rag doll with paper and bandages, rags and glue. With a great sense of humour.): Bitter.It’s your dreams that are bitter, darling! Water is water. You invent ghosts. (Pause. She takes another drink.) Why did you get up?
HIM:: I heard you moving around. You sounded like a mouse and I got scared.
HER: (Quickly, almost without hearing him. Referring to the work she’s doing.): You know I’ve got to finish it! It won’t take long! If I stop now I’ll never get it finished. Like so many other times. You might not believe it, but I’m fed up of having them here without ever finishing them. We’ve got no more space in this house … the rooms are piled high, the bathroom, the loft, the kitchen, the corridors, they’re stuck to the cornices, the roof, the eaves of the patio … and one day they’ll all crash down around us. Can you imagine that? (Different tone.) And I’m not prepared for what we once thought so necessary to fall down around us. No, no and no! I insist! I insist! (Different tone.) Give me a hand, come on! Come on, darling. Leave that!
HIM:: Why do you ask, if you know what I’ll do? I refuse! I know for sure that it’s not worth it …
HER: (Quickly.): You and your obsessions! (Pause. Different tone. Stopping her work.) Scared, you said? Why were you scared? Because of a mouse, you said! You’re exaggerating, for God’s sake, as if we were at the end of the world … or could see some catastrophe coming …

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation The Perfect Machine by Catherine Boyle is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 2

Context:

Her is becoming increasingly frustrated at Him's detachment from reality and at his obsession with the Tarahumaras.

Sample text

HER: (Softly, sweetly.): Darling, I’m confused. I’d like to know, really understand. It’s as if I had a star in my hands and it was escaping me. (A different tone.) Come here, help me! (A different tone.) And the Tarahumaras? What do they mean? Why bring them into this?
HIM: (Pointing to the back of the stage.): There they are! (He abandons the cards.)
HER: (Distracted by her work.): Mulehead!
HIM:: Clearer than water!
HER:: Tall tales!
HIM:: Tall tales? Ha! You’ll see! Because you’re the one … that brought them into this house!
HER: (She gives up what she’s doing, crosses her arms.): Who, me? Darling, that’s a bit too much … I brought them in! (She stands up, and she takes the glass of water and sees that it’s empty. With contained violence.) Anyone listening would think I invented this whole thing, that I’m the one quibbling and causing problems.
HIM:: You’re not too far off!
HER:: So, is that the nicest thing I’ve got to hear! You, you … Better not say a word. (Brief pause.) If you helped me you wouldn’t be stuck in all … in all these half-baked inventions, this rubbish! (A different tone.) Look at my work! Look at it! It’s beautiful … If you’d helped me, I’d have finished by now. (A different tone.) Yes, darling, that’s the reality! (She goes back to her work.) So! … I don’t understand you!

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation The Perfect Machine by Catherine Boyle is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 3

Context:

Him dreams of creating a perfect machine, a perfect doll.

Sample text

HIM: (Moving slowly out of the shadow zone.): It’s true, darling. It was me. Yes. (Pause.) Ah, if only there were the words … if I could tell you that this long fight, this walking in the twilight … destroyed, scratching around, biting the shadows … If only I could … In this mediocrity, this emptiness … Look around you! Shadows laughing, dancing …! Shadows upon shadows! The house, this house, my house … I wanted … I wished that the world, that you and I were, how can I say it, that … (He makes a gesture as if to hug her and ends up hugging himself. Pause. Sobs. Pause.) It’s horrible to think that you’re living a pointless life! … Because … (He stammers this word a few times looking for another word. A different tone, of almost disconcerting innocence.) Is it that there exists an intelligence superior to ours that has determined or determines our gestures, our actions, our words? If so, then, I must keep silent … I must accept everything. But, what if it’s the exact opposite? … (Pause. A different tone. The words come to his lips sweetly, like in an ecstasy.) Yes, that’s probably what it is! … So, I can … (A different tone.) Of course I can, and not only that … (A different tone. Like music.) I must, yes, I must … I am wholly within my right … I must change things ... and the world. (A different tone.) And the idea of a destiny pushed its way into my head. The idea of a fantastic destiny. And I constructed a legend. I am the savior, I am the redeemer. Blessed are those that follow my words. Blessed … (With sudden arrogance.) And you and I began … soft and hard. Lots of cunning, darling, it’s just the thing! Never stop, not even to gather strength! … Do you remember? It was very easy. It was the house, our house, my house … Nothing could stop me. I am the absolute owner! Me and nobody but me! Therefore, I imposed my rule. I imposed my law … (With a diabolical smile.) Is a chair capable of rebellion? Or a table? A glass? A curtain? A pot, a pin, a needle in a haystack? Any old piece of junk? No! Not that! Never! Because that’s what it all is. Junk! Junk! (A tone as if he’s lost it, and at the same time fascinated by his speech.) And why don’t we make a doll that we like? Why not? Others have dreamt of a new man. The perfect man. A perfect machine. A thing of admirable perfection … It’s in the books. Thousands and thousands of books talk about the same thing. Scientifically, systematically. And others, others … the dream of Frankenstein. The Eve of the future, Locus Solus and the robot … And nobody’s got it absolutely right. After interminable and laborious searches in the laboratories and through alchemy, nobody, nobody … Why shouldn’t we give it a go? The perfect doll. Like a magic act. Like this! (He goes to the table, takes the cards and throws them on the table.) Anybody who hasn’t experienced in the flesh the burning seduction of magic cannot understand its tyranny. (He laughs. Mephistophecally. In a frenzy.) Yes, I’m Merlin! The enchanter of roads! I am King Midas! … (She laughs with long noisy bursts of laughter.) Stand back! I am the magical lord of miracles!
HER: (Still laughing and joking.): Bravo! Bravo! Formidable, my man!
HIM:: Hang on, for fuck’s sake. Let me finish.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation The Perfect Machine by Catherine Boyle is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ONE-ACT PLAY excerpt 4

Context:

Him talks about his terrifying dreams about the Tarahumara tribe.

Sample text

HIM: (Firm.): No! (A different tone.) That's theTarahumara tribe!
HER: (Clinging onto him. Desperate.): The Tarahumara tribe! The Tarahumaras! … What does that mean?
HIM:: I don’t know! I don’t know! You’ll see in the end! There they are! … In my dreams they say to me … that they are the Tarahumaras, and they sing and dance, with their painted faces … I see them, darling, naked … Them, these dolls … with their arms dangling, their faces twisted, their eyes sunken or out of their sockets, sometimes only the trunk, or the legs and the trunk, without necks or heads or faces, or with their heads rolling like basketballs … they dance and dance and sing, in the depths of the sea, around a fire that’s a phosphorescent flash of water and mist … and I’m at their mercy, about to be sacrificed … they pull at me, they tie me to a stake, on a high rock, they throw spears at me … they shout at me, they rebuke me, they insult me, they drink my blood drop by drop, they copy my gestures and speeches, then they act like avengers … and I hear the turbulence of the water … the sound like a well of water, an empty sound … there they are … and I’m afraid … (Almost in a sob.) I’m afraid!
HER: (Anguished sigh.): I don’t understand you. (Brief pause. Resigned.) What does it matter! (She caresses his face, and sweetly cradles him, while she sings.)

Copyright