Photo by: Scott Casey
Teatro fantastico! Javier Torre’s Spanish theatre class performed two feminist plays last Tuesday.
The plays performed were “Calle, Pague y No Moleste, SeCB1ora!” (“Shut-up, Pay and Don’t Bother Me, Lady”) by Lidia FalcCB3n and “…Y A Otra Cosa Mariposa” (roughly translated as “…See You Later Alligator”) by Susana Torres Molina.
Both plays are about feminism. They are both comedic, yet require a good amount of thought.
The first play, “Calle, Pague y No Moleste, SeCB1ora!” was split into three separate scenes, each with different characters. The first scene involves a woman who is beaten by her husband. She goes to the police station to charge him, but the policeman says that she should not blame her husband for beating her when he is trying to watch a soccer game after a long day. The woman leaves the station crying.
The second scene involves a woman who goes to see a lawyer to get a divorce because her husband went on a vacation with his secretary. The lawyer looks down on the woman, and uses terminology that the woman does not understand. In the end, she gets confused and leaves.
The third scene is about a woman who is sleeping with a married man who eventually leaves her for another mistress. She becomes depressed because of this and calls a psychiatrist for help. The psychiatrist tells her things that she does not comprehend, and she ends the call feeling just as depressed as before she called the psychiatrist.
In between the two plays, Ruth Kimbell, a student who acted in the first play, spoke about domestic violence and sexual abuse, which are important issues in the United States and the world. She also read some statistics about the number of women who are beaten and abused.
The second play “…Y A Otra Cosa Mariposa” was also split into three separate scenes. The whole play is about four men who remain friends through childhood and into old age. The parts of the men are played by women, at the direction of the writer.
Each scene displays the men at different stages in their lives and how they talk about the women in their lives or the women they see in the scene.
The first scene “The Cousin” shows the men at the age of 12 or 13. They are sitting in the park, watching women go by and criticizing them, as well as talking about the women in their families.
The second scene “Bachelor Party” occurs when the men are between the ages of 30 and 32. One of the men is about to get married, and they are all out at his bachelor party. At dinner, the men get drunk and talk about the women in their lives: their wives, girlfriends and other women. One of the men confesses that he is gay.
The third scene “A Whole Life” portrays the men between the ages of 65 and 70. The men are back on the park bench talking. This time they speak of health, their families and younger people. At the end of the scene their younger selves appear and make fun of the older men, while the older men criticize the boys. The play comes full circle with the opinions of the young men contradicting those of their older selves.
After the performances, a bag was left on the stage for the audience to donate money to Safe House, a battered women’s shelter.
The plays were performed in Spanish, but English translations were provided in the playbills.
