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Plays 1960's |
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1961 La Viuda/The Widow 1 In an Andalucian style living room, where the main piece of furniture is a huge writing desk with many locked, small drawers, stands Angela, who is in her seventies. Hearing a visitor Angela rushes to the desk, removes a letter from a drawer which she then re-locks. She moves quickly to a window and holds the letter closely to her eyes. A thin man in dusty clothes enters and, without turning to look at him, Angela silently points towards her writing desk. He sits down and takes from his battered briefcase yellowish paper and a pen. Angela turns and instructs him to sit instead on a high stool. She then sits at her desk and starts dictating letters. Her first letter, dated 1899, is to her cousin, David. She checks the scribe's text and angrily instructs him to write only what she dictates. Referring to a letter from her desk Angela resumes her dictation of the letter to David. She tells David that she has heard that Francisco de Arenal has been attacked and is no longer mentally competent. She asks that David discreetly learn more and let her know. Angela dictates another letter to David sharing something of her views concerning Cuban politics and her regret at having moved to Spain, thirty years earlier, to avoid Cuba's Ten Year War. This letter is followed by another letter to David urging him to act upon information she has seen in a Cuban newspaper that all weddings must be certified in Cuba by 31st December. He is instructed to ensure that her wedding is certified. She reminds him that her situation is unusual. Angela dictates a fourth letter to David thanking him for two letters but telling him that he has told her nothing new. She expresses the view that the American defeat of Cuba was a hard blow for Francisco de Arenal but that his poor health is a punishment for his lifestyle. As the scribe heartily laughs at this point Angela asks David to keep sending news to her and starting dictating another letter. She reminds David that she remains the legal wife. Angela dictates that she has born their relationship with stoicism but will not accept the public dishonour of the denial that she is a respectable woman, wife of Francisco de Arenal. She regrets that Casimiro Paz, a friend, rather than a member of her family, has sent an article which names another as de Arenal's wife. Watching the scribe she continues to dictate reprimanding David for writing that it is impossible to prevent the other woman's name being used in official papers and the press. She closes the letter urging him to seek advice on the matter and let her know. Angela slowly and formally takes a chair to the centre of the room. She fetches a black hat box to place opposite the chair. She replaces the writers the scribe's letter paper with black-edged paper from her desk. Angela then sits opposite the hat box, and removes from it a widow's hat which she then wears to the close of the play. In a deep voice she dictates that her husband has died but Casimiro, rather than a member of her family, sent her the announcement. Thinking that her name might have been excluded from the death certificate in favour of the other woman she wants to see the death certificate herself. Signing the letter she stands at the desk with her back to the audience as the stage darkens. 11 It is 1900. It is sunset and Angela is again with the scribe. In the room there is now a raised platform decorated with black ribbons and flowers. Angela dictates a letter saying that she has not had a reply to a previous letter and has much to recount. As she dictates Paco appears on the platform but he is unseen and unheard by Angela or the writer. She dictates that it is now time to reveal secrets. Paco speaks of not being able, as a matter of principle, to write as directed by a newspaper owner and so he has lost his job. He hopes to work in Havana. Angela dictates her memories of her husband's debts; possible forays into politics; his squalid flat and her refusal to live there with their son. The breakdown of the marriage unfolds as each speaks of their experiences. Angela recalls how her confessor was not sympathetic to Paco. Don Modesto and Don Roque, powerful people, were against Paco. Their criticisms of Paco increased her father's dislike of Paco. Angela's son, Salvadore, was her comfort and he was a compassionate child who admired his mother. She recalls him as he was dying asking why he had not met his father and asking this whilst from her imagination others gather round. Angela breaks away and dictates the closure of her letter to David as darkness falls. 111 It is 1901. At night a saddened Angela sits at her desk. She writes to her cousin David. He has written that Paco became an American citizen and so could divorce Angela legally. She argues that Paco would not divorce her and recalls a letter he wrote to her in 1865 seeking reconciliation. One called Moncita appears and constantly shadows Angela passing on gossip about Fransico de Arenal's political and personal lives; that he again wanted to live with Angela. Paco recites a 1878 letter to Angela from Paris in which he seeks reconciliation or access to his son. Angela continues her dictation to David recounting her rejection of Paco's overtures. She discloses that following the end of the Ten Years War he travelled to meet Angela to seek reconciliation but that she refused and told him to not ask again. He left for Paris. The letter completed, the curtain falls. 1V At night an agitated Angela takes a letter from her desk and starts dictating. She dismisses the statement in Paco's 1865 Will that she left him and would not rejoin him. As she speaks there appear on stage herself as a young woman with her son as a young boy writing to his father asking to meet. Angela continues to dictate her letter explaining how she tried to persuade Paco to return. He appears on stage reciting a letter he wrote to Angela in 1865. He replies that he was deeply moved by her letter and one from Salvadore. Angela dictates that she was encouraged by the reply but that when she twice wrote to Paco asking him to come to his dying son he did not reply. This, to Angela, proved Paco's falseness and disproved the claim in his Will that she had refused reconciliation. Dakness falls. In the same room one morning in 1901 Angels dictates a letter to her cousin David letting him know she has found Don Manuel Alvarez, a young lawyer, who hates Paco's relatives as much as she does. Allvarez appears wearing a cardboard box over his head. Angela begins another letter to David. She tells him that she is asking Casimiro Paz to send her Paco's death certificate. She makes it clear that she trusts Paz who then appears wearing a cardboard box over his head. Paco too enters wearing a cardboard box and stands next to Casimiro. Angela walks up to Paco as she dictates another letter to David. She disputes David's good opinion of Paco, instructing the writer to make a copy of a 1884 letter from Paco wrote to Angela asking for money. She takes from her desk three paper tails and as she prepares to leave the stage she pins a tail on the backs of Manuel, Casimiro, and Paco. Darkness falls. V It is 1902. Angela enters the room at night. She dictates to David the news that she received Paco's death certificate via Casimiro Paz and now wants a quick start to legal proceedings asserting her rights as the legal widow, and mother of Paco's legitimate son. Anxiously, she dictates two more letters to David urging speed. Her next letter tells David that she now has Paco's revised death certificate and has written a statement which is to be published in Cuba and distributed as thousands of leaflets to publicise her legal status as widow. Angela dictates to David a defense of her actions. She does not accept his arguments that God is testing her; that Paco's illegitimate son is being hurt by Angela's pursuit of revenge which she regards as justice. Salvador and Salvador as a child, Paco, Monicita, Manuel and Casimiro appear and urge revenge while Angela shakes each of them into silence. Paco says all Angela ever wanted was to be a widow. Widow's hats are lowered over Salvador and Salvador as a child, Paco, Monicita, Manuel and Casimiro as they tease Angela. She resumes her dictation of her defence but on checking what the scribe is recording finds he has not written her words. She sends him away and a widow's hat is lowered for him. He then sits in Angela's seat at her desk and a recording of Angela's voice comes from his mouth with accusations against her view of herself as dignified and honest. Angela fails to silence the scribe but then removes him to his original seat, resumes her own seat at the desk, and resumes her campaign for the distribution of thousands of leaflets in Cuba. Curtain.
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