• Overview
• Staging information
• Translations
• Sample translations
• Production history

Scene

The play is divided into 19 scenes. Each one has a heading:

• Meet the Parents
• The Big Envelope
• You’ll Work It Out
• Make a Wish
• Another Absent Father
• Have You Been Drinking?
• Bloody Chaos
• Conflicts
• Headwear
• Get Out of Here!
• It’s No Fun Being in Charge
• Peter Pan
• The Child We Once Were
• The Black Box
• Someone New Every Time
• Move Around the Space
• What’s Happened?
• I Never Played
• Growing Pains

Staging

Most of the action takes place in Adrian’s family home. There are also scenes in a local park, a hospital, Danny’s bedroom, a school office and a small performance space.

Notable staging elements

• In scene 4 it is Alex’s thirty-seventh birthday. He has a cake with candles: one a figure ‘3’; one a ‘7’. The scene then jumps back in time to Alex’s seventh birthday, and so the ‘3’ candle disappears from the cake.
• In scene 6 Adrian meets his friend Danny on a park bench. The boys listen to CDs on a large CD player.
• In scene 9 Alex wears a banana on his head.
• In scene 14 Adrian gives his grandfather a box filled with mementoes from his childhood, including a spinning top, a music box and old photos and coins. In scene 19, Adrian, Pepe, Alex and Rosa also unwrap black boxes.
• In scene 18 Adrian visits Danny’s bedroom. A little electric train goes round and round.
• In scenes 1 and 19 Pepe, Alex and Rosa dress up as the Three Wise Men.

Lighting

At the end of a number of scenes the stage goes dark and Adrian’s voice is heard without the audience being able to see him. At times, when most of the stage is in darkness, little glimmers of light are still visible, such as the lights of Danny’s electric train set in scene 18, and the light coming from inside the black boxes in scene 19.

Music

In scenes 1 and 19 the adults sing a snippet from a song traditionally sung by the Three Wise Men, Ya vienen los Reyes Magos (The Wise Men are Coming). The Three Wise Men or Three Kings are popular in Spanish and other cultures as gift-givers who distribute sweets and presents to children on 6 January (Epiphany). In scene 1 the adults sing quite solemnly, but in scene 19 the song is accompanied by a disco beat.

At the end of the play, the disco music becomes childlike. In scene 4, similar childish music transports the adult characters back in time to when they were seven years old.

Cast number

Minimum	Maximum
7 males	7 males
1 female	1 female
8 (total)	8 (total)

Characters

• ADRIAN
• DANNY
• ALEX
• ROSA
• TEACHER
• FATHER (PEPE)
• GRANDFATHER

Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 4 January 2011.

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