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- LOS RESTOS: Fedra
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LOS RESTOS: Fedra (1996-1997), Raúl Hernández Garrido
THE REMAINS: Phaedra, translated by Gwynneth Dowling
ONE-ACT PLAY, excerpt 1
- Context:
- Hippolytus resents Phaedra’s presence in his house. Phaedra is disorientated and alone in a strange land. Their alternating monologues are fragmented and are delivered as streams of consciousness with very little punctuation.
- Sample text
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- PHAEDRA/HIPPOLYTUS:
Three days alone in this house…
I come back and she’s still here…
When I could no longer hear the coarse roar of his boat When the sea had covered the last of the dark surf behind it When all I’m left with is his son that by His will I must look after look after like a mother prevailed upon by His will … Three days alone without knowing how when and why in this huge empty house…
I come home ashamed of what’s been taken off me and I come face to face with the thieving imposter…
Waiting for him three days in this house the corridors filling with noises the shadows with Faces without eyes Silently Watching me Looking at me Strange house with Shadows from distant times moving all over the house I’ve closed the doors all the doors the door of my bedroom double-locked Three days waiting for him fearing the sound of the telephone when will the telephone ring…
Three days hoping that on my return she had disappeared in a cloud of smoke just another shadow Just a terrible nightmare Just a bad dream Three endless days It turned out to be too short a time Three days an eternity Three days to get her out of my mind…
Strange house too big a house for one strange person closing in around me on somebody strange and weak The house shakes moves from side to side I feel it collapsing round my shoulders strange onto Someone weak on Someone with no one and no support on Someone like me…
A pretender reigns over the strange house Like a cuckoo in the nest Settled in a strange land in a strange family in a strange house…
In the strange house No news of the man-child A man I must call son That stranger that shames me with his look Where could he be nothing has happened to him call the police don’t call the police Still no news Then what will become of me here alone in this strange land and then finally keys in the lock…
I open the door of what used to be my house and my father’s house and now the house of his whore and I hear her fox-like footsteps a little rat hiding away running down the corridor Perhaps caught in the act of greedily counting my father’s money Then putting it back in its hiding place…
- Copyright
-
The above sample taken from the translation THE REMAINS: Phaedra by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
ONE-ACT PLAY, excerpt 2
- Context:
- A chorus of voices urge Phaedra to leave her new home.
- Sample text
-
- CHORUS:
Phaedra, time is running out.
You can still save yourself. It’s now or never.
Run.
- PHAEDRA:
I don’t have anywhere else to go.
- CHORUS:
The streets would be better than this house. The streets or the forest.
The roads, the town square, the mountains, anywhere. Far from this house.
- PHAEDRA:
I’m waiting for my husband to come home.
- CHORUS:
Your fate has already been sealed.
You still do not know it; you cannot know it.
- Copyright
-
The above sample taken from the translation THE REMAINS: Phaedra by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 13 October 2011.
