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Luz negra (c.1966), Álvaro Menén Desleal
Black Light (1974), translated by Gerardo Luzriaga, Robert Rudder
ACT ONE Scene Two
- Edition
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Luzuriaga, Gerardo and Robert S. Rudder, eds. and trans. 1974. The Orgy: Modern One-Act Plays from Latin America. Los Angeles, University of California, UCLA Latin American Center
116-118 - Sample text
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- BLINDMAN:
Every city has a Square with this name. Although it’s true that some Squares aren’t necessarily the heart of a city. It’s generally thought that they are its lungs; but they could be its liver, its stomach, its ass. The leaders of a town don’t call it a liver, a stomach of an ass: they call it a heart. That’s why they always have a square with this name.
- MOTER:
Heart Square?
- BLINDMAN:
No; Liberty Square. This Square is called Liberty Square.
- GOTER:
You’re wrong
- BLINDMAN:
Then, what is its name?
- MOTER:
Liberty Square
- BLINDMAN:
Liberty Square. I never would have thought it. It should be called Liberty Square.
- GOTER:
Still, it’s called Liberty Square.
- MOTER:
Liberty? I thought its name was Liberty Square.
- GOTER:
No; it’s Liberty Square, which is still ironic. That’s why, when the Party comes to power, they’ll change its name.
- BLINDMAN:
What will they call it?
- GOTER:
Liberty Square.
- BLINDMAN:
I think that’s a better name for it. Goodbye. (He goes off.)
- MOTER:
Goodbye.
- GOTER:
Goodbye.
-
A pause so the Blindman can leave.
- MOTER: (Exhilarated.)
He heard us!
- GOTER:
I told you, it won’t work with him.
- MOTER:
It has to work!
- GOTER:
I already told you.
A pause.
- MOTER:
So then, we played the part of ghosts.
- GOTER:
More or less.
- MOTER:
We should be careful. It’s not good to play ghosts.
- GOTER:
That’s true. Cabalists say that by playing ghosts we could turn into ghosts.
- MOTER:
What shall we do now?
- GOTER:
Wait. It will only work with the man.
- MOTER:
It’s not use.
- GOTER:
You’ll see: it will work.
- MOTER:
The man is deaf. He won’t hear our word.
- GOTER:
Let’s wait.
-
Silence.
- MOTER:
It’s awful.
- GOTER:
Yes, it’s awful.
- MOTER:
Nobody’s coming.
- GOTER:
They’re all at home.
- MOTER:
They got there, satiated with emotions, they watched television a while, and then they went to bed on top of their wives.
- GOTER:
The man will come to clean up the blood.
- MOTER:
The gravediggers will come to take us away. (A pause.) And if you were given another chance … (A pause. Goter is silent.) … Would you do the same things? (Goter doesn’t answer.) Goter! (Loudly, in desperation.) Goter!
- GOTER:
What?
- MOTER:
I asked you a question.
- GOTER:
Oh, sorry; I didn’t hear you. I think my mind is starting to go. What did you ask me?
- MOTER:
I asked if you would do the same things if you were given another chance?
- GOTER:
I don’t know. I really don’t know now. What about you?
- MOTER:
Well … I don’t know either. Everything is becoming less clear to me. (A short pause.) I really did have some good times. (He smiles.) I was in the war in Africa too.
- GOTER:
A rebel?
- MOTER:
No; on the side of the French … I joined the Legion. When I had leave I would walk along the elegant streets and stop to look at ladies’ underthings in the shops and stores … What tiny, delicate little things! … Then I’d go off to the whore houses.
- GOTER:
You said you never killed anyone.
- MOTER:
Maybe because I didn’t have time for it; one day I ran off with a black dancer, and I never went back to the war.
-
A pause.
- GOTER:
Who gouged the blindman’s eyes out?
- MOTER:
The Yankees. He said it happened in Vietnam.
- GOTER:
No; he said it was in Algiers.
- MOTER:
In Vietnam.
- GOTER:
In Algiers.
- MOTER:
I’m positive. He said it very clearly: it was Algiers.
- GOTER:
In Vietnam.
- MOTER:
In Algiers
- GOTER:
In Cuba! It was in Cuba!
- MOTER:
Cuba doesn’t have anything to do with it. IT was in the Six Days War.
- GOTER:
In the Dominican Republic. The Yankees always do it.
- MOTER:
You’re stupid. The Arabs gouged out his eyes; that’s what he said.
- GOTER:
That never happened. The Jews gouged out his eyes; that’s what he said.
- MOTER:
It was in Biafra.
- GOTER:
Not Biafra; Bolivia. It was the Bolivian army. The blindman’s name is Debray.
- MOTER:
He said his name was Dutschke. He lost his sight when a bullet wounded him in the head in Berlin.
- GOTER:
It was Cohn Bendit. De Gaulle ordered him to be blinded with acid in the May Revolution.
- MOTER:
He didn’t tell us his name. He said he had been in Prague, and that his name was simply Blindman.
- GOTER:
It was China.
- MOTER:
The Green Berets did it. In Guatemala – Brasil – Panama – Spain – Greece – Portugal.
- GOTER:
Whatever you say; but is was on Earth.
- MOTER:
Don’t be so sure.
- GOTER:
What blindman are you talking about?
- MOTER:
I’m not talking about any blindman. I’m talking about a calendar with a nude picture of Brigitte Bardot.
- Copyright
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The above sample taken from the translation Black Light (1974) by Gerardo Luzriaga, Robert Rudder is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 5 October 2010.
