An Excerpt

Maria Negroni
tr. Anne Twitty

half light

mother            daughter

both are seated, looking distracted, or rather, melancholy. With a lingering flush of frenzy or reproach, although it would be premature to inquire at whom or why. The mother, at left, mouth awry, eyelids half-closed, as if smoldering coals from previous devastations. The daughter in the same posture, but restless: at times she is corroded by hope. Although occasionally we seem to hear the mother's voice, it is the daughter who speaks, always (the interior voice is not a monologue). Her tone, on guard, ships at alert, flags flying, almost never degenerates into a sermon. Never into lyricism. It is just barely postulated as a destiny; it confesses like a hunger for something. 

from the light technician's booth, located centerstage, emerge notes that are interspersed with the daughter's speeches; they sound like a radio broadcast, in a light impersonal tone.

details to note: boreal butterflies
                                  (odor of lilacs, of China roses)
                                  faded chrysanthemums
                                  empty bottles of coca cola
                                  leftovers
                                  in a word: living matter. The stage
                                  is complete in itself. Only the television
                                  (to one side) is so very immaculate.
                                  Only the images that it projects into the
                                  room, which we watch with a kind of horror,
                                  relief.

a voice (impossible to identify) repeats like a litany:

                                                                              –little girl lost

this, intermittently, throughout the scene

Maria Negroni, LA JAULA BAJO EL TRAPO/CAGE UNDER COVER