Out of the Wings

Nina (2002-2003), José Ramón Fernández

Nina : One Act Play, excerpt 1 , One Act Play, excerpt 2 , One Act Play excerpt 3

Nina (2007), translated by Sarah Maitland

One Act Play, excerpt 1

Edition

Ramón Fernández, José. 2007. Nina, trans. Sarah Maitland. Madrid, Caos Editorial, http://www.caoseditorial.com/libros/ficha.asp?lg=en&id=49 [accessed January 2010] (Online Publication)

p. 24

Context:

This conversation takes place early on in the play. Blas and Nina reminisce about the past.

Sample text

NINA:: You preferred jazz.
BLAS:: I’m surprised you still remember.
NINA:: What was that trumpeter called? The one who used to sing as well.
BLAS:: Chet Baker.
NINA:: You liked Chet Baker. María didn’t really like him.
BLAS:: No. I don’t put it on at home. I take myself off over here. I come here at night a lot, to work. At home, with the boy there, I can’t keep the lights on, and here you can work in peace. When you’re doing the accounts the worst thing is being interrupted. So I come to the atrium, put on a Chet Baker CD and get stuck into the calculator.
NINA:: And María doesn’t mind?; (Blas is unsure if Nina knows the María of today. The María who prefers spending her time sniffing around Gabi like a dog. The María who cannot bear Blas’s very existence.)
BLAS:: No.
NINA:: I liked the trumpeter. When he sang, it was like he hadn’t slept for weeks.
BLAS:: That’s probably how it was. Apart from the fact that before he’d turned forty he’d been beaten up and had all his teeth broken. He wore dentures. Hang on.; (BLAS goes over to the small stereo and turns it on. Chet Baker sounds. Baker’s trumpet seems to bring back a private joy to BLAS. It is obvious it is his refuge. They listen to the music. It could be Let’s Get Lost or The Best Thing for You. NINA’s feet remain, like the call of the sea.)

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Nina (2007) by Sarah Maitland is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

One Act Play, excerpt 2

Edition

Ramón Fernández, José. 2007. Nina, trans. Sarah Maitland. Madrid, Caos Editorial, http://www.caoseditorial.com/libros/ficha.asp?lg=en&id=49 [accessed January 2010] (Online Publication)

pp. 27-8

Context:

As the night progresses, Nina is getting more and more drunk. She is indulging in fond memories of the past.

Sample text

(NINA fills her glass. More than is customary. She drinks with resolve, without shame. The alcohol begins to help her let out her desperation, like water spilling out of a pond. Though with sweetness all the while.)
NINA:: You know what I remember? What I truly miss … When I was fifteen or sixteen, and I’d sit on my own on the beach. I used to love going down to the beach by myself, at that time of year. When there’s no one about. There weren’t many people then. Just the fishermen. I liked it better when it rained. Like I was the only one left in the world. I’d sit curled up on the sand dune and look out to sea. I’d sit like that for two or three hours, long enough for Forgive Me by Bryan Adams to play four times through. (She hums.) I knew it off by heart.; (BLAS tries to joke around, and makes a gesture as if he has heard enough of those years.)
BLAS:: I remember. It was all about forgetting.
NINA:: I liked to be alone with the waves and my walkman. The waves had to be strong, which is why it was better if it was raining. They could be part of the song that way. I liked to imagine I loved someone as much as that song made me feel. Sometimes songs make us remember emotions we’ve never actually experienced. I read that somewhere.
BLAS:: That’s one of the rain-making songs.
NINA:: Yes. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Rain-making. Rain, and cold sand and clouds. It was perfect. There I was, just waiting and waiting, like the grey mullet that swim along the shore just asking for someone to come and fish for them. One day Gabi came and sat down beside me and started to talk about the cinema and the theatre, and things he was writing. And another day he brought a poem he’d written for me. A strange poem about dreams. I don’t remember how it went. Just that one line, ‘dark dreams’. And another day we started kissing and putting our hands on each other. We put our hands on each other like we were in a hurry. And then came the nights. We learned together. On the beach. Then June came. Those three days that turned me mad. Your life can go straight to hell in just three days. You become someone else. Suddenly Gabi seemed like a child to me. It was like I’d lived ten years in one go and everyone else just went on as normal. That’s what happened when I met Pedro.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Nina (2007) by Sarah Maitland is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

One Act Play excerpt 3

Edition

Ramón Fernández, José. 2007. Nina, trans. Sarah Maitland. Madrid, Caos Editorial, http://www.caoseditorial.com/libros/ficha.asp?lg=en&id=49 [accessed January 2010] (Online Publication)

pp. 52-4

Context:

This is the end of the play, just before Nina leaves. She opens up a little further to Blas and the two share a quiet goodbye.

Sample text

NINA: (Distracted, with feigned indifference, as if she were saying something completely banal and harmless.)

So, then … I was the queen of the dance, wasn’t I? I was going to be something special. And then that summer I met Pedro and I believed the things people told me. People called me the queen and everything was going to be multicoloured. … After the thing with Pedro, I left. He never loved me. (Sarcastically.) He and Gabi’s mother deserved each other. I don’t know what I was thinking? I put myself up in a guesthouse, and he’d come over whenever he felt like it. He’d fuck me and be away again straight after. You know, I’ve been in the theatre and on the TV, but I’ve made a mess of something that was sacred to me. And now I go out and I play my role, and people say it’s not bad, but I know that’s not what it’s about. I’ve lost Pedro … he never left her. He’d come to see me when Irene was away. But he was always with her. I’ve lost a child I was going to have. His child. I’ve lost my life as well, along the way. All I’ve got left is the chance to go back and do things better.

(BLAS looks at her, as if he had been driving a lorry full of nitroglycerine. NINA comes out of her own story like a bather emerging from the sea. As if day were just beginning.)

NINA:

Don’t look at me like that. Like you’ve just seen a ghost. Must be all the weight I’ve lost. I’m sorry. Lucky you, having to hear all of this. I just needed to leave all of this here. To say it once and for all and face up to it.

(They smile. If they were able to, they would embrace one another. It is late. They cannot.)

NINA:

There’s a film going round in my head, too. I remember the name this time, unlike some people I could mention. I didn’t listen to the blind man.

BLAS:

What blind man?

NINA:

The blind man in Cinema Paradiso. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Cinema Paradiso. You cried.

BLAS:

What do you mean I cried? You lot cried, the three of you. Looking at what happened to the boy and the girl. Snotty noses all round.

NINA:

You cried at the end. I saw you, when they played all the kisses that’d been cut out over the years.

BLAS:

That bit’s designed to choke you up. The blind man was Philippe Noiret. What do you mean you didn’t listen to him?

NINA:

When the boy’s leaving town and goes to say goodbye to him, the old man tells him something. Don’t you remember? He tells him, ‘Don’t come back anymore’. I need someone to say that to me. Do that for me, will you?

(Interminable silence.) Please. (Silence. Pain.)

BLAS:

Don’t come back anymore.

(Silence.)

NINA:

Thank you.

(They look into each other’s eyes. A moment. Scarcely half a metre separates them. The uncertain distance of an embrace. NINA kisses BLAS on the mouth for a long moment. She leaves. BLAS stands calmly looking at the door. Like a sailor whose feet have just touched dry land. As if the world has stopped turning. The night is over. This day will be followed by a new day, even though it seems impossible now.)

Copyright