Out of the Wings

Lo crudo, lo cocido y lo podrido (c.1978), Marco De la Parra

The Raw, the Cooked and the Rotten, translated by Catherine Boyle

Scene

One-act play.

Staging

The set represents an old restaurant lost in the centre of Santiago de Chile that has seen better days. Cobwebs, old curtains, dusty shelves, great stained and dirty mirrors show how time has passed by. The restaurant has a few tables and chairs. They do not have tablecloths, and some of the chairs have been knocked over. The light gives the sensation of enclosure, dampness, thick air growing stale within the four walls of the place. There is not even one window. On one side is the door to the kitchen, opposite the door that leads outside, that cannot be seen since it is behind two great pillars. At the back, behind a railing, are private rooms. When the play, set at the present time, starts, Efraín Rojas and Evaristo Romero are on stage, both waiters, both dressed in white jackets, black dickie bow and dark trousers. Their clothes are visibly the worse for wear, but hidden behind a dignified attitude. They are sitting on different chairs, one at each end of the stage, behind old newspapers that seem to belong to the restaurant’s golden age. Their made-up faces make them look similar, hiding their age behind a facade of powders and creams.

Characters