#OOTW2022

Joshua Welch & Daniela Cristo.
Photograph by Terry Cripps.

Daniella Piper & Samantha Manzur.
Photograph by Terry Cripps.

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The Girl who was Cyrano &
The Fisherman’s Short Play (Double bill)

A double bill of mistaken identities. In Argentina, Valentina, who’s not a child anymore, becomes a girl again, to tell us about a girl who is a girl and sometimes a boy. While in Early Modern Mallorca, feeling the need for some decent company, poor Llacinta is in dire straits…

THE GIRL WHO WAS CYRANO

by Guillermo Baldo (Argentina), translated by Sebastián Gutiérrez

Valentina, who is not a child anymore, becomes a child again to tell us about a girl who sometimes is a girl, and sometimes is a boy. A girl who, like a little Cyrano, replies to love letters from her best girl friend, but signing as a boy. Together, they build a trench, a shelter. The exchange of love letters and words becomes more and more frequent, as the little girl is pushed to face emotions she can’t classify nor understand. She is in love. There is more and more correspondence, as well as efforts to keep up with the lies. Some news will change the course of things… And if lies have short legs, love and the urge of desire will make them even shorter. Can love be understood at some age? The girl who was Cyrano takes on the quest to find a stage that helps to rehearse a cross-generation encounter. We live in a society that constantly creates separate universes for children and adults, trying to censor young audiences from topics they are thought not to be ready to understand. It also takes on the responsibility to project a sensitive experience on stage, one open to debate and in tension with reality.

·About the author Guillermo Baldo
·About the translator Sebastián Gutiérrez

THE FISHERMAN’S SHORT STORY
by an unknown, Early Modern Mallorcan playwright, translated by Richard Huddleson/Riocárd Ó hOddail

The life of a fisherman’s wife is rarely a jolly affair, especially in Early Modern Mallorca. Depressed by unforgiving poverty, and feeling the need for some decent company, poor Llacinta is in dire straits. However, Lent is on the horizon and her fortunes could change swiftly.

With the switch from meat to fish, the event promises to be a real moneymaker if her husband can reel in the catch and get it to market in time. However, his steadfast taste for the auld hootch could spell disaster. Should her economic outlook shift from bad to worse through her husband’s negligence, Llacinta will need to quickly make some big decisions to solve her pressing problems. Like a snake in the garden, a crafty solution appears to her in the guise of a wayward, meddling priest…

The translation of this play came about through a 2021 research grant from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Creative Team

THE GIRL WHO WAS CYRANO

Director

Mariana Aristizábal

Cast

Daniella Piper
Samantha Manzur

THE FISHERMAN’S SHORT STORY

Director

Sergio Maggiolo

Cast

Daniela Cristo
Elena Sanz
Joshua Welch