THE GIRLS OF THE 3 1/2 FLOPPIES. To 28 August.
Edinburgh.
THE GIRLS OF THE 31/2 FLOPPIES
by Enrique Gutierrez Ortiz Monasterio.
Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2) To 28 August 2005. Tue-Sun Various times.
Runs 1hr 10min No interval.
TICKETS: 0131 228 1404.
www.traverse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 August.
People going nowhere given dignity and significance on the way.
Mexican dramatist Enrique Gutierrez Ortiz Monasterio may not be a name yet to trip off many British theatregoers' tongues but in having his show at the Traverse, and British playwrighting shopper and fucker Mark Ravenhill providing the English surtitles, he's already several metres ahead of the competition. More importantly, this longish one-act play shows why Ravenhill and the Traverse are interested in Monasterio's work.
Writing about characters with boring lives has an obvious risk. A two-hander limits action and interaction. Introducing outlandish elements around a realistic (or apparently realistic) central situation carries a responsibility to make it all hang together. And bringing the action round in a kind of circle can easily fall flat. This play handles all these things with seeming ease. It's comic, frightening and makes its anonymous characters matter.
Though they're in the same boat these two women are very different. One chatters on idly, asking repeatedly for coke and unable to understand the answer No. The other works unremittingly cleaning the floor of her home.
This play should be seen by any politician who speaks confidently about the merits of choice. These women can make choices, yes, but any decisions would be made meaningless because of their poverty. The rent, school fees (in Mexico the cost of a more basic provision than in Britain) soak up any money that might go on anything more luxurious.
Meanwhile the 'Floppies' beckons, never quite defined but a place of delights and danger. The first are there for the rich, the second for those who provide the pleasures. In particular the Tijuana Boys offer financial prospects, but what they do to anyone they don't like is graphically exemplified.
If there's nothing else for thesewomen in this world, the next is no better. A religious statue's used for stashing drugs, while one of the women has collected a boxful of identical Bibles from hotel rooms, with the illusion they'll have a resale value.
All this suddenly ends in darkness, lights coming up to reveal two women, one idly chatting, one relentlessly cleaning. Only the headless statue and opened box of Bibles - for which they construct a mundane and inaccurate explanation - shows these are different people.
John Tiffany's production plays combines the elements of humour, danger and routine seamlessly. Aida Lopez and Gabriela Murray give patient, 100% reality to these lives and the possibilities, or lack of them, waiting outside this room. A fine production of a splendid play that ought to be seen more widely in British theatre.
Cast: Aida Lopez, Gabriela Murray.
Director: John Tiffany.
Designer: Juliana Faesler.
Sound: Alejandra Hernandez.
2005-08-19 15:01:45