Out of the Wings

Ignacio y Maria (c.2001), Nara Mansur

Ignacio and Maria : ACT ONE

Ignacio and Maria, translated by Gwendolen MacKeith

ACT ONE

Context:

This episode is entitled 'Complaints and Advice'.

Sample text

MARÍA: I want to cry so much, cry so my tears and snot are left dripping from Ignacio’s shirt. That’s the only way I can understand him sharing my pain, I want physical proof, painless but visible, I want an image to dream about later.

IGNACIO: Where are you Maria? Where are you hiding? Why do you make up these stories?

MARÍA: The street, the trade unions, the managers, the administrators, the directors, the bankers, the ones who don’t even protect their mothers.

IGNACIO: You still haven’t learnt that they don’t love you, you still can’t bear that they walk past you when you fall in the street.

MARÍA: I still can’t bear any other saliva that isn’t his. Smokers’ breath gets to me ... and even so I go on talking about tolerance like this.

IGNACIO: No more wanting, no more faith in anything except television.

MARÍA: No more food. What shall I put on the table Ignacio? The napkins ran out before, it’s a long time since the tablecloth hasn’t got dirty, and I haven’t painted my nails since that Saturday.

IGNACIO: I start to go grey, I start to sleep less, to look at women and look at men with the same intensity, that is to say, with none.

MARÍA: I don’t want to be a character, I want to be a persona, I want anyone to read me or to look at me, or interview me. I just want to dance and eat rice and chicken.

IGNACIO: I’m going now. When I go, will something get better? Will something change? Will it make things funny or sad?

MARÍA: Yes, I have heard everything, that’s true. I know everything. I’m very upset, I cry and when that happens, I cry.

IGNACIO: Once I read that you have to transform daily failures into creative revolutions.

MARÍA: Shut up, don’t say that word. I never want to hear that word again.

IGNACIO: What word?

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