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- Vida con mamá
- Staging information
Vida con mamá (c.1975), Elisa Lerner
- Scene
This is a two-act play.
- Staging
On stage are two early-forties wicker rocking chairs, a solid dark wood chest of drawers with two graceful silver candelabras and an old-fashioned alarm clock with a big bell on top of it.
Other props are a basin and pitcher, and a large painted vase. The stage directions suggest that ‘the past must be made present through furniture which is period, yet unadorned. The stage must not try to be a copy of the era which is being evoked, but a vision of itself’
The mother’s costume is a lavish velvet cocktail dress, embellished with pearls. Lerner specifies that it should evoke the designs makes by Erté in the 1930s. The mother is also wearing quilted house slippers. The daughter, in contrast, is wearing a silk blouse and a skirt.
The stage will need to have the facility to project images and film footage as well as to play known songs, such as Carlos Gardel’s ‘Rubias de Nueva York’. The play is rich in references to popular culture. This might suggest investigating archival material for period advertisements, products and brands as well as news archives such as images of the Chilean president, Allende, before the coup.
One of the most prominent objects in the play is the appearance and reappearance of a wedding dress, which should be suspended on the stage, like an apparition. An old-fashioned pram is also a key prop.
- Cast number
-
Minimum Maximum None male None male 2 females 4 females 2 (total) 4 (total) - Cast information
- Lerner states in her opening stage directions that: ‘The characters of the Mother and Daughter can be played by four actresses. That is, two actresses for the role of the mother and two for the role of the daughter, alternating from one scene to another according to the director’s stipulations.’
- Characters
MOTHER
DAUGHTER
Entry written by Gwendolen Mackeith. Last updated on 13 April 2012.
