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- Nuestras vidas privadas
Nuestras vidas privadas (c.2008), Pedro Rozo
- Titles
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English title: Our Private Life
Date written: c. 2008
First production date: 21 November 2008
Keywords: morality > vice-virtue, violence > personal, identity > class/social standing, identity > sexuality, family > patriarchy, power > use and abuse, power > inter-personal/game play, identity > celebrity, family > parents and children, family > incest
- Pitch
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Private lives are made public in this irreverent and comical drama about an accusation of child abuse which threatens to bring down an aspiring middle-class family in a rapidly developing Colombian village.
- Synopsis
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The father of a modern Colombian family is accused of trying to sexually abuse the 12-year-old son of one of his employees. This sends reverberations through the family and his own two sons, now adults, begin to speculate about this claim in relation to their own histories. The youngest son, Carlos, is gay and suffers from bipolar disorder and is a compulsive fantasist. He begins to wonder if he too has been the victim of his father’s sexual abuse. Soon Carlos’s elder half-brother Sergio, a successful man by Colombian standards, also begins to question whether he might have suffered a similar fate. Their mother acts as if nothing is wrong. Her nightmares are the only symptom of disquiet and she forgets them three seconds after she wakes up. Her primary concern is for their material wealth and the status it brings as members of a growing sophisticated and modern social class.
The father tries to silence the mother of the boy he allegedly tried to abuse by bribing her. But the audience cannot be sure if this is an admission of guilt or an innocent man trying to salvage his reputation in a village which thrives on rumours. An acquisitive psychiatrist conducts consultations in order to create testimonies for the court case, but is primarily interested in the revenue for his practice, not necessarily the truth.
With black and irreverent humour in a parody of a soap opera, Pedro Miguel Rozo continues to play skillfully with our sympathies, not allowing us resolution about the allegation until the end of the play.
- Critical response
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Pedro Miguel Rozo received the Distrital Playwriting competition in 2009 for Our Private Life, as well as the Iberescena Best Play award for Purgatory Express.
Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 15 June 2012.
