Triana Night of the Assassins

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78001-951-2
Verlag: Nick Hern Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 50 Seiten

Reihe: NHB Modern Plays

Three siblings plot to kill their parents in this controversial masterpiece from a major Cuban poet and playwright. In the game-playing scenarios the siblings invent, they play the parts of the parents, policemen and judges.  José Triana's play Night of the Assassins is a dramatic allegory of the political situation in Cuba in the 1960s, with its call to revolution echoed in the children's need to overcome their fear and turn convention upside down. The play was written in 1965 (Triana had begun work on an earlier version of the play in 1957), and first staged in November 1966 in the Teatro Estudio, Havana, Cuba. This English translation by Sebastian Doggart was first staged in August 1994 in the Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh, by the Southern Development Trust.

José Triana (1931-2018) was a Cuban poet and playwright. His best known play is Night of the Assassins (1966).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Triana, José

Weitere Mitwirkende

Doggart, Sebastian

Leseproben

Act One

LALO. Shut the door. (Beats his chest. Exalted, wide-eyed.) An assassin. An assassin. (Falls to his knees.)

CUCA (to BEBA). What’s all this?

BEBA (indifferently, watching LALO). The performance has begun.

CUCA. Again?

BEBA (annoyed). Of course! It’s not the first time.

CUCA. Please don’t get upset.

BEBA. Grow up.

CUCA. Mum and Dad haven’t gone out yet.

BEBA. So?

LALO. I killed them. (Laughs. Stretches his arms solemnly out to the audience.) Can’t you see the two coffins? Look: candles, flowers . . . We’ve filled the room with gladioli. Mum’s favourite. (Pause.) They can’t complain. Now they’re dead we’ve made them happy. I myself dressed their stiff, sticky bodies . . . And with these hands I dug a deep, deep hole. Earth, more earth. (Gets up quickly.) They still haven’t discovered the crime. (Smiles. To CUCA.) What are you thinking about? (Caressing her chin as if she were a child.) I understand: you’re scared. (She moves away.) Oh, you’re impossible.

CUCA (dusting the furniture). I can’t stand all this nonsense.

LALO. Nonsense? You think a crime is nonsense? How cold you are, little sister! Nonsense? Do you really think that?

CUCA (firmly). Yes.

LALO. Then what is important to you?

CUCA. I want you to help me. We have to tidy up this house. This room is a pit. Cockroaches, rats, moths, caterpillars . . . the whole bloody lot. (Takes an ashtray from the chair and puts it on the table.)

LALO. How far do you think you’re going to get with that duster?

CUCA. It’s a start.

LALO (authoritatively). Put the ashtray back in its place.

CUCA. The ashtray belongs on the table, not on the chair.

LALO. Do what I tell you.

CUCA. Don’t start, Lalo.

LALO (picks up the ashtray and puts it back on the chair). I know what I’m doing. (Picks up the vase and puts it on the floor.) In this house the ashtray belongs on the chair and the vase on the floor.

CUCA. And the chairs?

LALO. On the table.

CUCA. And what about us?

LALO. We float with our feet in the air and our heads hanging down.

CUCA (annoyed). Fantastic! Why don’t we try it? What would people say if they heard you now? (In a harder tone of voice.) Look, Lalo, if you keep being pushy, we’re going to have problems. Leave me alone. I’ll do what I can.

LALO (purposefully). Don’t you want me to help you?

CUCA. Don’t mess things up.

LALO. Then don’t mess with my things. I want the ashtray there. The vase there. Leave them where they are. It’s you who’s being pushy, not me.

CUCA. Oh right! Now it’s me who’s being pushy? Darling, that is priceless! Now it’s me . . . ? Look, Lalo, please shut up. Order is order.

LALO. There is none so deaf as she that won’t hear.

CUCA. What?

LALO. You heard.

CUCA. Well, darling, I don’t understand. That’s the honest truth. I don’t know what you’re on about. It all sounds crazy. It gets me into an utter state. I can’t say or do anything. And if it’s what I think it is, then it’s sick.

LALO. Scared again? Get something into your tiny little head. If you want to live in this world you have to do many things, and one of them is to forget fear.

CUCA. Doesn’t that sound easy!

LALO. Well, do it then.

CUCA. Stop hassling me. And don’t preach, it doesn’t suit you. (Dusting a chair.) Look at this chair, Lalo. How long since it was last cleaned? There are cobwebs even. Ugh!

LALO. Shocking! (Approaching cautiously, purposefully.) The other day I said to myself: ‘We must clean up’; but then we got sidetracked into some nonsense and . . . Look, look at it. (Pause. Purposefully.) Why don’t you help?

CUCA (almost on her knees next to the chair, cleaning it). Leave me out of it.

LALO. Go on.

CUCA. Don’t push.

LALO. Just for a bit.

CUCA. I’m no use.

BEBA, who has been upstage cleaning some old furniture and pots and pans with a rag, moves downstage. She smiles. Her movements are slightly reminiscent of LALO’s.

BEBA. Those corpses are unreal. Spectacular! They give me goose pimples. I don’t want to think any more. I’ve never felt so happy. Look at them. They’re flying, they’re breaking up.

LALO (grandly). Have the guests arrived?

BEBA. I heard them coming up the stairs.

LALO. Who?

BEBA. Margaret and old Pantaleón.

CUCA doesn’t stop her work, although occasionally she pauses to look at them.

LALO (contemptuously). I don’t like those two. (In another tone of voice. Violently.) Who told them?

BEBA. I don’t know! No, don’t look at me like that. I swear it wasn’t me.

LALO. Then it was her. (Points to CUCA.) Her.

CUCA (still cleaning the furniture). Me?

LALO. Yes, you. As if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

BEBA. Perhaps no-one told them. Perhaps they decided to come themselves.

LALO (to BEBA). Don’t try and cover for her. (To CUCA, who gets up and mops her brow with her right arm.) You! You are always spying on us. (Starts walking around CUCA.) You watch our every step, every word we say, everything we think. You hide behind curtains, doors, windows . . . (With a sly smile.) Ha! The spoilt brat plays detective. (Roars with laughter.) Two and two make four. Elementary, my dear Watson. (Suddenly.) Ugh! (Softly, like a cat watching its prey.) You’re never satisfied. What do you want to know?

CUCA (fearful, not knowing what to do). Nothing, Lalo, nothing . . . honestly . . . (Sharply.) Don’t get at me.

LALO. Then, why do you watch us? And why do you mix with such dreadful people?

CUCA (her eyes filling with tears). I didn’t mean to . . .

LALO. That’s what I can’t forgive.

CUCA. They’re my friends.

LALO (with furious contempt). Your friends. You’re pathetic. (With a triumphant smile.) Don’t think you can fool me. You’re being ridiculous. You resist, but you really want to run away . . . little Miss Muffet. I already know you haven’t got the guts to call things by their real names. (Pause.) If you’re against us, show us your teeth. Bite! Rebel!

CUCA. Stop it.

LALO. Come on!

CUCA. You’re getting on my nerves.

LALO. You can do it.

CUCA (choking). I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.

LALO. Come on, get up.

BEBA (to LALO). Don’t torment her.

LALO (to CUCA). Look at me.

CUCA. My head hurts.

LALO. Look at me.

CUCA. I can’t.

BEBA (to LALO). Give her a few moments.

CUCA (sobbing). It’s not my fault. It’s just how I am. I can’t change. I wish I could.

LALO (irritated). What a dunce you are.

BEBA (to CUCA). Come on then. (Takes her aside and walks her over to a chair.) Dry your tears. Aren’t you embarrassed? He is right you know. You’re being difficult. (Pause. She strokes her hair.) There, there. (In an affectionate tone of voice.) Don’t look so sad. Give us a smile. (In a maternal tone of voice.) You shouldn’t have done it; but if you’ve started, you might as well finish. (Joking.) Your nose has gone all red, just like a baby tomato. (Tapping her nose with the index finger of her right hand.) What a silly-billy you are! (Smiles.)

CUCA (staying close to BEBA). I don’t want to see him.

BEBA. Calm down.

CUCA. I don’t want to hear him.

BEBA. He won’t eat you.

CUCA. My heart . . . Listen to it, it sounds like it’s going to explode.

BEBA. Don’t be a cry-baby.

CUCA. I swear, I swear.

BEBA. Well, get used to it.

CUCA. I want to run away.

BEBA. It will pass.

CUCA. I can’t stand it.

BEBA. It gets easier.

CUCA. I feel terrible.

LALO (holding a cauldron in his hand, making an invocation). Oh, Aphrodite, illuminate this night of infamy.

CUCA (to BEBA, distressed). He’s starting again.

BEBA (to CUCA, soothingly). Sshh. Don’t pay any attention to him.

CUCA. I want to spit on him.

BEBA. Don’t go near him. He bites.

LALO (as Roman emperor). Come to my aid; I’m dying of boredom.

CUCA, incapable of putting herself on the same level as LALO, reproaches him in a mocking tone of voice.

CUCA. What a performance! He’s just like your uncle Chicho, don’t you think, Sis? (In disgust.) You’re a monster.

LALO (as important gentleman). When the gods are silent, the people shout. (He throws the cauldron downstage.)

CUCA (as mother. Sarcastically). That’s right, smash the place up, you don’t have to pay for it.

LALO (smiling, facing the door). What a delightful surprise!

BEBA (to CUCA). Are you feeling better? (CUCA nods.)

LALO (greeting imaginary people). Do come in . . . (As if he were shaking their hands.) Oh, how are you? Hello!

BEBA (to CUCA). Sure? (CUCA nods.)

LALO (to BEBA). They’ve arrived.

BEBA (to LALO). Keep them at a distance so they will go away.

LALO (to BEBA). They’ve come to get...