Read Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga Online

Authors: Mario Vargas Llosa

Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga (19 page)

KATHIE: The streets were very narrow, there was a smell of animals and plants. Natives in local costumes were passing by. I walked on and on until I eventually arrived at a building that looked like a palace …
SANTIAGO: I lose myself in a labyrinth of narrow little lanes, an interminable maze of steps, terraces, balconies and stone pediments. Wild horses whinnying in the woods serenade me, and the scent of the clove tree drives me wild with desire. What is this building with its lattice windows of finely carved tracery, bronze studded gates and dancing columns? It’s the sultan’s palace! But I don’t even pause – I carry on forward midst beturbaned Muhammadans, wailing beggars, hissing whores as shrill as piccolos and ebony-skinned youths with dazzling smiles undressing me hungrily with their eyes, until I reach a little square, where I have a funny feeling the slave market once was …
To Patricia Pinilla
The plot of this play can be summed up in a few sentences.
The action takes place in Piura, a city surrounded by desert in the north of Peru. In the district of the sports stadium, there is a small bar frequented by a poor and dubious clientele and run by a woman known as La Chunga. One night, Josefino, one of the regulars, comes in with his latest conquest, Meche, a slim and very attractive young woman. La Chunga is instantly captivated. Josefino, in order to amuse himself and his friends – a group of layabouts who call themselves the superstuds – goads Meche into provoking La Chunga. In the course of the night josefino loses all his money playing dice. So that he can carry on playing, he hires out Meche to La Chunga, and the two women spend the rest of the night together in La Chunga’s little room, next to the bar. After that night, Meche disappeared and has never been heard of since. What has happened between them?
The play begins some time after this event. At that same table in the bar, the superstuds, who still play dice, try in vain to find out the truth from La Chunga. They don’t succeed. So they invent it. The scenes which they each dream up are brought to life on stage and maybe there is some element of fleeting truth in them. But they are, above all, secret, private truths which lie hidden in each one of them. In La Chunga’s house, truth and falsehood, past and present, co-exist, as in the human soul.
The various themes the play develops or touches upon shouldn’t give rise to confusion: they are love, desire, taboos, the relationship between men and women, the habits and customs of a certain milieu, the status of women in a primitive, male-dominated society, and the way in which these objective factors are reflected in the sphere of fantasy. It is clear in the play, I think, that objective reality does not condition or subdue man’s desires – on the contrary, thanks to his imagination and his ambitions, even the most unsophisticated of human beings can momentarily at least break out of the prison in which he is trapped.
As in my two earlier plays,
The Young Lady from Tacna
and
Kathie and the Hippopotamus
, I have tried in
La Chunga
to convey through dramatic fiction the totality of human experience: actions and dreams, deeds and fantasies. The characters in the play all have two sides to them: they are both themselves and their phantom selves – creatures of flesh and blood whose destinies are conditioned by the limitations of their lives, such as poverty, marginality, ignorance, etc. – and spiritual beings who, despite the crudity and monotony of their existence, always have access to relative freedom, through recourse to fantasy – the human attribute
par excellence
.
I use the expression ‘totality of human experience’ to emphasize the obvious fact that a man’s actions are quite inseparable from his desires and ambitions; also because the indivisibility of these two aspects of human experience should be apparent in performance, where the audience should be confronted with an integrated world in which what the characters say and what is going on in their imaginations – what actually happens and what is imagined to happen – are one continuous stream, rather like a reversible garment that can be worn either way round, so that it is impossible to tell which way round is which.
I do not see why theatre should not be a suitable medium for showing this synthesis of objective and subjective human experience, or rather, such experience in the process of synthesis. Through stubborn prejudice, however, people are inclined to think that the ambiguous, evanescent world of subtle shades and sudden arbitrary shifts, unrelated to time – the work of the imagination spurred on by desire, cannot co-exist on stage with objective reality, without creating insurmountable difficulties for the director. I do not believe there is any explanation for this scepticism other than idleness, and a fear of taking risks, without which all creative enterprise is hampered.
It is simply a question of finding a form of theatre that capitalizes on what is unique to the theatre, man’s talent for pretending, for play-acting, for putting himself into situations and projecting himself into characters different from his own. In the scenes in which they act out their fantasies, the characters
should be indulgent to themselves, love themselves, as they play these extensions of their own personalities, dividing themselves, as actors do when they go on stage, or as men and women do mentally when they call on their imaginations to enrich their lives, illusorily acting out those roles which are either denied them in real life, or which they seldom have a chance to play.
Finding a technique for theatrical expression – a means of realizing this practice so universally shared, that of enriching life through the creation of images and the telling of stories — ought to be a stimulating challenge for those who want a new kind of theatre or who want to explore new avenues, rather than painfully pursuing those three archetypes of modern theatre which are already starting to show signs of ossification from over-use: the epic didacticism of Brecht; the pure entertainment value of the theatre of the absurd; and the affected spontaneity of the happening and other variations on the improvised show. The theatre and the images it can create are, I’m sure, an ideal medium for the expression of that tangled and disturbing world of angels, demons and wonders which lie at the heart of our desires.
 
Mario Vargas Llosa
LA CHUNGA
MECHE
The superstuds
EL MONO
JOSE
JOSEFINO
LITUMA
Piura, 1945.
La Chunga’s restaurant-bar is near the stadium, in a district of reed matting and wooden planks which grew up not long ago in the sandy area, between the main road to Sullana and the Grau Barracks. Unlike the flimsy dwellings of the neighbourhood, it is a proper building – with adobe walls and zinc roof – spacious and square. On the ground floor there are rustic tables, benches and seats where customers sit, and a wooden counter. Behind this, there is a kitchen, blackened and smoky. On a higher level, which is reached by a small staircase, there is a room, which no customer has ever visited. It is the proprietress’s bedroom. From there, La Chunga can observe all that goes on below through a window hidden behind a flower-patterned curtain.
The customers of the little bar are local people, soldiers from the Grau Barracks on leave, football fans and boxing enthusiasts, stopping for a drink on their way to the stadium, or workers from the building site in that new area for the rich which is making Piura into an expanding city: it is called Buenos Aires.
La Chunga has a cook who sleeps in front of the stove, and a boy who comes in during the day to serve at the tables. But she is always at the bar – usually standing. When there are not many customers, as tonight, when the only people in the place are those four layabouts who call themselves the superstuds (they have been playing dice and drinking beer for some time) La Chunga can be seen rocking slowly back and forth in a rocking chair made of reeds, which creaks monotonously, as she gazes into space. Is she lost in her memories or is her mind a blank – is she simply existing?
She is a tall, ageless woman, with a hard expression, smooth taut skin, strong bones and emphatic gestures. She observes her customers with an unblinking gaze. She has a mop of black hair, tied back with a band, a cold mouth and thin lips – she does not speak much and she rarely smiles. She wears short-sleeved
blouses and skirts so unseductive, so unprovocative, that they seem like the uniform of a school run by nuns. Sometimes she goes barefoot, sometimes she wears heel-less sandals. She is an efficient woman: and runs the place with an iron hand and knows how to command respect. Her physical appearance, her air of severity, her terseness, are intimidating; it’s not often that drunks try to take liberties with her. She does not listen to confidences nor does she accept compliments; she has never been known to have a boyfriend, a lover, or even friends. She seems resolved always to live alone, dedicated body and soul to her business. Except for that very brief episode with Meche – which was quite baffling for the customers – no one has ever known her altering her routine for anyone or anything. For as long as the local Piuranos can remember, she has only ever been seen behind the bar – where she stands motionless and unsmiling. Does she perhaps occasionally go to the Variedades or the Municipal to see a film? Does she take a walk through the Plaza de Armas in the afternoon when there’s a concert? Does she go to the Eguiguren Pier or the Old Bridge to bathe in the river at the beginning of each summer if it has rained in the Cordillera? Does she watch the military procession on Independence Day, among the crowd congregated at the foot of the Grau Monument?
She is not an easy woman to engage in conversation; she replies in monosyllables or by nodding or shaking her head and if she is asked a facetious question she’ll reply with a coarse remark or a monstrous lie. ‘La Chunguita’, say the Piuranos, ‘does not stand any nonsense.’
The superstuds, who are always playing dice, drinking toasts to each other and joking, know this very well. Their table is right underneath a kerosene lamp which hangs from a beam, around which insects flutter. They remember the time when the little bar belonged to a certain Doroteo, who was La Chunga’s first business associate and whom – according to local gossip – she pushed out by hitting him over the head with a bottle. But despite coming here twice or three times a week, not even the superstuds could call themselves friends of La
Chunga. They are merely acquaintances, customers – nothing more. Who in Piura could boast they know her intimately? The fugitive Meche, perhaps? La Chunga has no friends. She is a shy and solitary soul, like one of those cacti in the desert of Piura.
Truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde
This translation of
La Chunga
was first performed as a rehearsed reading on 29 April 1989 at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. The cast was as follows:
LA CHUNGA
Valerie Sarruf
MECHE
Geraldine Fitzgerald
EL MONO
Tom Mannion
JOSE
John Skitt
JOSEFINO
Tom Knight
LITUMA
Alan Barker
Director
David Graham-Young
EL MONO: (
Holding the dice above his head
) Come on, superstuds. Let’s sing the old song again, to bring me some luck.
JOSE, LITUMA, JOSEFINO
and
EL MONO (
Sing in chorus with great gusto
)
We are the superstuds.
We don’t want to work.
All we want is a little bit of skirt.
Drinking, gambling all night long,
In Chunga’s bar where we belong.
Wine, women and song —
Wine, women and song.
In Chunga’s bar where we belong.
In Chunga’s bar where it’s cheap and nice,
And now we’re going to throw the dice!
(EL MONO
blows on his fist and kisses it, then throws the dice on to the table. The little black and white cubes hurtle across the top of the table, bouncing up and down, colliding, ricocheting off the half-empty glasses and finally come to rest, their journey cut short by a bottle of Cristal beer
.)
EL MONO: Ahaha! Two threes! That’ll do me nicely. Right, I’m doubling the bank.
(
No one reacts or adds a single cent to the pool of banknotes and coins that
EL MONO
has beside his glass
.) Well come on, you spineless lot of buggers. Is no one going to take me on?
(
He picks up the dice, cradles them in his hands, blows on them and shakes them above his head
.)
Now here goes for another six – a five and a one, a four and a two, a three and a three – or this little stud’s going to chop off his pecker.
JOSEFINO: (
Offering him a knife
) For all the use it is – here, borrow my knife. Go on, cut it off!
JOSE: Just toss the dice, will you, Mono. It’s about the one thing you’re good at – tossing.
EL MONO: (
Pulling faces
) And they’re off … Whoosh. A three and a six. (
Crosses himself
.) Holy Whore. Now for the six.
LITUMA: (
Turning towards the bar
) Don’t you think Mono’s become very vulgar lately, Chunga?
(LA CHUNGA
remains unperturbed. She does not even deign to glance at the superstuds’ table
.)
JOSE: Why don’t you answer poor Lituma, Chunguita? He’s asking you a question, isn’t he?
EL MONO: She’s probably dead. That thing rocking backwards and forwards over there is most likely her corpse. Hey, Chunga, are you dead?
LA CHUNGA: You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could scarper without paying me for the beers.
EL MONO: Ahaha. I’ve brought you back to life again, Chunga, Chunguita. (
Blows on the dice, kisses them, and throws them
.) Holy Whore. Now for the six.
(
All four of them watch, their eyes glued to the little black and white cubes as they go on their bumpy journey among glasses
,
bottles, cigarettes and matchboxes. This time they roll off the table on to the wet earthen floor.
)
One and three is four, superstuds. I just needed another two. The bank is still up – if anyone’s got the balls to bet.
LITUMA: Hey, what happened that time with Meche, Chunga? Go on. Make the most of it while it’s just us today. Tell us.
JOSE: Yes, go on, tell us, Chunguita.
LA CHUNGA: (
Detached as always, in a drowsy voice
) Go and ask your bloody mother. She’ll tell you.
(EL MONO
throws the dice
.)
EL MONO: And it’s a six! Right, you bastards, I’m pissing on you all from a very great height. Now open your mouths and start swallowing, hahaha! (
Turns towards the bar
.) It must be your sweet temper, bringing me luck, Chunguita. (
Lifts up the kitty and kisses the banknotes and coins in an
extravagant manner
.) Another couple of beers, nice and cold mind – because this time, they’re on me! Hahaha!
(LA CHUNGA
gets up. The chair carries on rocking, creaking at regular intervals, as she, the owner of the bar, goes to fetch a couple of bottles of beer from a bucket full of ice, which she keeps beneath the bar. Listlessly, she carries them to the superstuds’ table and places them in front of
EL MONO.
The table is bristling with bottles
. LA CHUNGA
returns to the rocking chair
.)
JOSE: (
Provocatively, in a shrill voice
) Are you never going to tell us what you did that night with Meche, Chunga?
JOSEFINO: Do you want to be raped? Well, shut up about Mechita, d’you hear, or I’ll have the pants off one of you in next to no time. Just mention her name and I start to get a hard-on.
EL MONO: (
Winking, he talks in a falsetto voice
) You too, Chunguita?
LA CHUNGA: That’ll do, you bastard. I’m here to serve beer, not to be made a fool of – not by anyone. Why should I listen to your smut? Just watch it, Mono.
(EL MONO
starts to tremble; his teeth start to chatter, he shows the whites of his eyes, he moves his shoulders and hands, as if in the throes of some hysterical convulsion
.)
EL MONO: Oh, I’m scared. I’m scared.
(
Helpless with laughter, the superstuds slap him to bring him to his senses
.)
LITUMA: Take it easy, Chunga. We may make you mad at times, but we love you really. You know that.
JOSEFINO: Whose bloody stupid idea was it to talk about Meche? It was you, wasn’t it, Lituma? Shit, you’ve made me all nostalgic. (
Raises his glass, solemnly
.) Let’s drink to the tastiest little wench that ever set foot this side of the Andes. To you, Mechita, in heaven, in Lima, in hell, or wherever the fuck you are.
As
JOSEFINO
proposes the toast and the superstuds drink
, MECHE
enters. She moves slowly and rhythmically which suggests someone entering the real world from the world of the memory. She is young and neat and has a firm, full figure – very feminine. She wears a light, close-fitting dress, and shoes with stiletto heels. She cuts quite a dash, as she walks
. LA CHUNGA’
s eyes widen and light up, as she watches her approach, but the superstuds remain unaware of her presence. By comparison
, LA CHUNGA’
s attention is focused on her so intensely that it is almost as if the present were losing all concrete reality for her, as if it were becoming blurred, fading away, to the point of extinction. Even the voices of the superstuds become thinner and fainter.
 
EL MONO: I’ll never forget the look on your face that time Meche came in here, Chunguita. Quite stunned, you were.
LITUMA: You’re the only one who knows where she is, Chunga. Come on, do us a favour. What’s it to you? Put us out of our misery.
JOSE: No. Why don’t you tell us what happened that night between the pair of you, Chunguita? Shit, I can’t bloody sleep at night for thinking about it.
EL MONO: I’ll tell you what happened.
(
Sings, pulling his usual funny faces:
)
Chunga with Meche
Meche with Chunga
Cheche with Menga
Menga with Cheche
Chu Chu Chu
And long live Fumanchu!
LA CHUNGA: (
In a faint and distant voice; mesmerized by
MECHE,
who is now beside her
) Hurry up and empty those glasses now, I’m closing.
(
Imperceptibly
, JOSEFINO
gets up, and, moving out of the present into the past, out of reality into the world of the
imagination, he goes and positions himself next to
MECHE,
taking hold of her arm in a proprietorial fashion
.)
JOSEFINO: Good evening, Chunguita. May I introduce Meche? MECHE: (
Stretching out her hand to
LA CHUNGA) Pleased to meet you, señora.
(
The superstuds, still engrossed in their game of dice
,
acknowledge
JOSEFINO
and MECHE with a wave of the hand.
)
(LA CHUNGA
holds
MECHE’s
hand and devours her with her eyes; it is clear from her voice she has been moved by the experience
.)
LA CHUNGA: So you’re the famous Meche. Welcome. I didn’t think he was ever going to bring you. I’ve been so much wanting to meet you.
MECHE: So have I, señora. Josefino talks a lot about you. (
With a gesture towards the table
) They all do, the whole time. About you and this place. I was dying to come. (
Indicating
JOSEFINO) But he wouldn’t bring me.
(LA CHUNGA
resigns herself to releasing
MECHE’
s hand; she attempts to regain her composure and appear natural
.)
LA CHUNGA: I can’t think why. I haven’t eaten anyone yet to my knowledge. (
To
JOSEFINO) Why wouldn’t you bring her?
JOSEFINO: (
Joking obscenely
) I was afraid you might take her away from me, Chunguita. (
Putting his arm round
MECHE’
s waist and flaunting her conceitedly
) She’s worth her weight in gold, wouldn’t you say?
LA CHUNGA: (
Admiring her and nodding
) Yes. This time I must congratulate you, Don Juan. Even though you are from the Gallinacera. She’s worth more than all those other women of yours put together.
MECHE: (
Rather embarrassed
) Thank you, señora.
LA CHUNGA: Don’t be so formal. Just call me Chunga.
LITUMA: (
Calling from the table
) We’re starting another game, Josefino. Are you coming?
JOSE: You may as well, Josefino. It’s Mono’s turn with the dice. You can guarantee it’ll be a walkover with this poor cretin.
EL MONO: Me a cretin? Holy Whore, I’ll be buggered if I don’t
fleece the lot of you before the night’s out. You’ll have to leave me Mechita, as a pledge, against all that money you’re going to lose, Josefino.
JOSEFINO: (
To
LA CHUNGA) How much do you think I could get for this little doll, Chunguita?
LA CHUNGA: As much as you want. It’s true. She is worth her weight in gold. (
To
MECHE) What are you drinking? It’s on the house. Would you like a beer? A vermouth?
JOSEFINO: I don’t believe it … Did you hear that, studs? Chunga’s paying.
LA CHUNGA: Not for you, I’m not. You’re a regular. I’m inviting Meche, since it’s her first time here. So that she’ll come back.
(
There is a great uproar from the superstuds’ table
.)
EL MONO: (
Shouting
) Hahaha. Am I hearing right?
JOSE: Ask her for a whisky, and share it out, Mechita.
JOSEFINO: (
Moving towards the table to take his place again among the superstuds
) Right. I’ll try my hand again.
MECHE: Weren’t you going to take me to the pictures?
JOSEFINO: Later. First I’m going to make myself a few bucks by fleecing these three morons. The night’s still young, pussycat.
MECHE: (
To
LA CHUNGA,
indicating
JOSEFINO) We’re not going to get to the pictures tonight, I can see that. There’s one on at the Variedades with Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán and it’s in colour. With bullfighting and music. It’s a pity Josefino likes gambling so much.
LA CHUNGA: (
Handing her the vermouth, which she has been preparing
) That one’s into all the vices. He’s the most unscrupulous bastard out. Whatever did you see in him? What do women see in such a burn? Tell me, Meche. What is it about him?
MECHE: (
Partly embarrassed, partly feigning embarrassment
) Well, he’s got … he’s a real charmer. He knows how to say nice things to a girl. And besides, he’s good-looking, don’t you think? And also … Well, when he kisses me and touches me, I start to tremble all over. I see little stars.
LA CHUNGA: (
With a mocking smile
) Does he really make you see little stars?
MECHE: (
Laughing
) Well, it’s just a manner of speaking really. If you know what I mean.
LA CHUNGA: No. I don’t know what you mean. I can’t understand how a pretty girl like you can fall in love with a poor sod like that. (
Very seriously
) You know what’ll happen to you, if you stay with him, don’t you?
MECHE: I never think about the future, Chunga. You’ve got to take love as it comes. It’s living for the moment that counts. You’ve got to get as much as you can out of it while it lasts. (
Becoming alarmed suddenly
) What will happen to me if I stay with him?
LA CHUNGA: He’ll make you see little stars for a little while longer. And then, he’ll put you into the Casa Verde – so that you can keep him, in style, by whoring.
MECHE: (
Scandalized
) What are you saying? You’re joking, aren’t you? Do you think I could do such a thing? You obviously don’t know me. Do you really think I’m capable of …
LA CHUNGA: Of course I do. Like all those other silly girls who saw little stars, whenever that pimp so much as looked at them. (
Stretches out her hand and strokes
MECHE’
s cheek
.) Don’t look so frightened. I like you better when you smile.

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