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Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa

Mr. Machado uses both fast, clever dialogue and small farcical gags to capture the dislocations of this household on the brink of upheaval.

New York Times

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Dark Comedy

  • Set Requirements: Interior Set
The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa shows one family's climb to wealth in the Cuba of 1928-31. The play is at once a political drama and social comedy, ranging from melodrama to farce. 

Questions of power, control and revolution within the family mirror society's wider conflicts. The father is a butcher who rules his wife and four grown children with an iron hand, even as he spends most of his time philandering outside the house. The only daughter, aged 27, is accused of having lost her virginity simply because she may once have kissed the now-deceased man who courted her for seven years. While her three brothers live less-cloistered sex lives, they benefit from a double standard that allows young Cuban men to go whoring to satisfy their "special needs." 

This play is a part of Machado's Before and After the Revolution series, a group of four plays about the Cuban Revolution. Other plays in the series are: Once Removed, In the Eye of the Hurricane, and Havana is Waiting.
REVIEWS:

Mr. Machado uses both fast, clever dialogue and small farcical gags to capture the dislocations of this household on the brink of upheaval.

New York Times
Premiere Production: The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa was produced on January 26th, 1983 in New York City at the Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Characters

  • Casting: 5M, 4F

  • MARIA JOSEFA - a Cuban woman, short, attractive, in her late forties
    ARTURO - her husband, a Basque
    MANUELA - their daughter, in her mid-twenties
    ERNESTO - their eldest son
    MARIO - their second son
    MIGUEL - their youngest son
    DOLORES - Maria Josefa's friend
    ADELITA - Ernesto's wife, a very light mulatta
    OSCAR HERNANDEZ - a taxi driver, thirty years ol

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa Script Order Now

    The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa shows one family's climb to wealth in the Cuba of 1928-31. The play is at once a political drama and social comedy, ranging from melodrama to farce. Questions of power, control and revolution within the family mirror society's wider conflicts. The father is a butcher who rules his wife and four grown children with an iron hand, even as he spends most of his time philandering outside the house. The only daughter, aged 27, is accused of having lost her virginity simply because she may once have kissed the now-deceased man who courted her for seven years. While her three brothers live less-cloistered sex lives, they benefit from a double standard that allows young Cuban men to go whoring to satisfy their ''special needs.' This play is a part of Machado's Before and After the Revolution series, a group of four plays about the Cuban Revolution. Other plays in the series are: Once Removed,In the Eye of the Hurricane, and Havana is Waiting

    		$24.95

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