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- La llamada de Lauren
La llamada de Lauren (1984), Paloma Pedrero Díaz-Caneja
- Titles
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English title: Lauren's Call
Date written: 1984
First publication date: 1985
First production date: 5 November 1985
Keywords: identity, identity > gender, identity > sexuality, family > marriage, love, identity > gender cross dressing
Genre and type: tragicomedy - Pitch
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It’s Pedro and Rosa’s third wedding anniversary. It’s also the night of the town carnival, a night of dressing up. Tonight, Rosa will be Humphrey Bogart; Pedro will be Lauren Bacall. But for Pedro, the call of Lauren is strong, and women’s clothes are more than mere carnival fun.
- Synopsis
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La llamada de Lauren (Lauren’s Call) is a short play set over the space of one evening. It is the night of Pedro and Rosa’s third wedding anniversary, a date that coincides with the carnival taking place in the streets outside. The couple therefore have the perfect excuse to add dressing up to their anniversary celebrations. The play begins with Pedro alone in the apartment preparing himself for the evening. To the husky voice of Lauren Bacall, Pedro gets dressed in an alluring female outfit complete with a luxurious wig, silk stockings and high heels. Rosa arrives home and is impressed by her husband’s transformation. He looks amazing; he’ll have to watch out for the attentions of men on the street! Rosa helps Pedro put the finishing touches to his outfit and then goes to put on her clown costume for the carnival. But Pedro has a surprise for her. He has hired a man’s suit that he wants her to wear. For one night only, he will be Lauren Bacall and she will be Humphrey Bogart.
Pedro insists on dressing Rosa. He puts the trousers of the suit on her ... but before he dresses her in the shirt, he binds her chest tightly. Rosa at first objects to such a tight band being put around her breasts to disguise them, but on Pedro’s insistence she accepts. Eventually, her outfit is complete. Dressed in a man’s suit, bow-tie, shoes and hat, Rosa sits while Pedro draws sideburns and a moustache on her face and provides her with a cigar to complete the look. Finally, Pedro has one last surprise for his wife – her anniversary present. Is it perfume? No, it’s a dildo! Pedro wants her to wear it, but Rosa is disgusted.
In the tense atmosphere that follows, Rosa brings up some things that have been troubling her about the marriage. She confesses that she is worried about Pedro, who appears haggard and distracted. It’s been months since they have had sex. Despite Pedro’s reluctance to talk about such issues on their wedding anniversary, Rosa insists. Pedro decides to take advantage of the situation. He challenges Rosa to seduce him. In her man’s suit, she becomes ‘Carlos’. Pedro, resplendent in his slinky dress, becomes ‘Azucena’. While it is clear that Pedro is thoroughly enjoying being seduced as a female, Rosa is less comfortable in her role as the predatory seducer. Eventually, Pedro grows impatient and tries to force his wife to perform a sex act on him with the dildo. Once again, Rosa is shocked and storms out of the apartment.
Later, Rosa returns home. She has calmed down and is eager to understand her husband’s strange behaviour. Eventually, after being pressed, Pedro opens up to her. He tells her that, as children, he and his sister used to enjoy dressing up in women’s clothes. One day, his father caught them. He slapped Pedro and he also beat Pedro’s sister, accusing her of turning her brother into a homosexual. From that day on, Pedro resolved to be overtly macho in an effort to remove any doubt about his sexuality. He now feels a sense of alienation in such a hyper-masculine role. In fact, Pedro confesses, he likes dressing as a woman. Rosa is outraged. She tries to take off Pedro’s dress, accusing him of being gay. Resigned, Pedro takes off his women’s clothes, sad that his wife cannot understand that his desire to wear women’s clothes does not automatically mean he is gay.
After this angry scene, Pedro and Rosa try to restore some calm to their supposedly celebratory evening. Pedro plays down his love of female clothes; Rosa suggests they have a child. Both pretend that Pedro’s revelation and behaviour can be easily forgotten and that things can continue as they were before. Eventually, Rosa gets into bed. Pedro remains awake. Believing Rosa to be asleep, he tentatively reapplies his lipstick in front of the mirror. Then, quietly, he packs a bag with the wig, shoes and other women’s accessories. He makes to leave, but Rosa suddenly asks him where he is going. Pedro is leaving for the carnival outside. Instead of arguing with him, Rosa completes Pedro’s look by putting a rose in his hair and wishes him happy carnival. He leaves dressed as a woman. Rosa remains alone, laughing, then crying.
- Sources
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At the beginning of the play, Pedro puts on the soundtrack to the film To Have and To Have Not (1944). In this film Lauren Bacall sings the song How Little We Know in a husky and almost manly voice.
Pedro dresses his wife up as Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married from 1945 until Bogart’s death in 1957.
- Critical response
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General
The first time the play was performed in 1985 it was considered shocking because of the crude language used and also because of the sexual subject matter.
In her brief Prologue to the 1987 Spanish edition, Patricia O’Connor notes that audiences were divided along gender and generational lines. Older spectators found the frank approach to the subject of sexual identity challenging. She noted that older males (including critics) were shocked that a woman was daring to deal with such an intimate issue (1987: 15-16).
In addition, some older audience members and male critics found it difficult to comprehend that a male could suffer a sexual/gender identity crisis without being homosexual. Women, on the other hand, reacted positively to the play. In general, the play was challenging because it called the fixed nature of gender roles into question.
More recent productions of the play in both Spanish and English have met with favourable reviews from critics who often contrast the contemporary appeal of the play with its former ability to cause outrage (see for example Juan Antonio Vizcaíno’s and Javier Villán’s reviews of the 2002-2003 productions of the play directed by Aitana Galán).
Academic
La llamada de Lauren (Lauren’s Call) has been the subject of much feminist critical study. Academics consider it from the perspective of what it has to say about marital relationships and the gender roles of males and females in society. See, for example, Lamartina-Lens 1991 and Podol 1991.
Lamartina-Lens, Iride. 1991. ‘An Insight into the Theater of Paloma Pedrero’, Romance Languages Annual, 2, 465-8
Pedrero, Paloma. 1987. La llamada de Lauren, 2nd edn. Madrid, Biblioteca Antonio Machado (in Spanish)
Podol, Peter L. 1991. ‘Sexuality and Marital Relationships in Paloma Pedrero’s La llamada de Lauren and María Manuela Reina’s La cinta dorada’, Estreno 17.1, 22-5
Villán, Javier. 2002. Review of La llamada de Lauren, Sala Cuarta Pared, Madrid, El Cultural, 16 Jan, http://www.elcultural.es/version_papel/TEATRO/3975/La_llamada_de_Lauren [accessed December 2009] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)
Vizcaíno, Juan Antonio. 2002. Review of La llamada de Lauren, Sala Cuarta Pared, Madrid, El Mundo, 10 January (in Spanish)
- Further information
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La llamada de Lauren (Lauren’s Call) was originally written as a short one-act play and was runner-up for the 1984 Valladolid Prize for Short Theatre. In November 1985 an expanded version was staged simultaneously by different companies in Valladolid and Madrid. Paloma Pedrero played Rosa in the Madrid production.
- Editions
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Pedrero, Paloma. 1985. ‘La llamada de Lauren’. In Premio Valladolid de Teatro Breve, 1984. Valladolid, Caja de Ahorros Principal
Pedrero, Paloma. 1987. La llamada de Lauren, 2nd edn. Madrid, Biblioteca Antonio Machado
Pedrero, Paloma. 1999. ‘La llamada de Lauren’. In Juego de noches. Nueve obras en un acto, ed. Virtudes Serrano, pp. 77-102. Madrid, Cátedra
Pedrero, Paloma. 2001. ‘La llamada de Lauren’. In El teatro alternativo español, ed. Phyllis Zatlin. Ottawa, Girol Books
- Useful readings and websites
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Podol, Peter L. 1991. ‘Sexuality and Marital Relationships in Paloma Pedrero’s La llamada de Lauren and María Manuela Reina’s La cinta dorada’, Estreno 17.1, 22-5
Sullivan, Mary-Lee. 1995. ‘The Theatrics of Transference in Federico García Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba and Paloma Pedrero’s La llamada de Lauren’, Hispanic Journal 16, 169-76
Villán, Javier. 2002. Review of La llamada de Lauren, Sala Cuarta Pared, Madrid, El Cultural, 16 Jan, http://www.elcultural.es/version_papel/TEATRO/3975/La_llamada_de_Lauren [accessed December 2009] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)
Vizcaíno, Juan Antonio. 2002. Review of La llamada de Lauren, Sala Cuarta Pared, Madrid, El Mundo, 10 January (in Spanish)
Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 12 November 2010.
