Title: “We are already 4”.
Author: Clara Pérez
5 characters:
- Determined: She tries to be the leader of the group and organize the escape.
- Fearful: She is afraid of everything around her.
- Conciliatory: She tries to keep calm in order to organize the escape.
- Thoughtful: She only reflects on the misery of being in jail.
- Haughty: Wants to take control by intimidating the rest of the girls.
SINGLE ACT
Setting: Cell in a small and uncomfortable jail where 5 girls are detained.
Decided (walking around the cell while speaking with a tone of authority): We have to think how to get out of here, I don’t plan to spend another day locked up in this hole, stop thinking nonsense and let’s start making a plan, they look like chickens cornered in there without deciding to get out of here, start thinking you CHICKENS!
Haughty (sitting on the floor, in a corner of the cell hitting the floor with a piece of wood, she speaks without looking up from the floor: I hate that word!
Determined (looking towards the corner where the haughty woman is sitting): Which one, think?
Haughty (in the same position and with a threatening voice): No, the other one.
Determined: Chicken?
Haughty (looking up at the determined one): Yes, that one and if you say it again you’ll have to deal with me.
Fearful (huddled in a corner almost trembling): Stop fighting! You upset my nerves, I don’t want to escape, I’m afraid, it’s dangerous.
Conciliatory (leaning against a wall with her foot resting on it): And how are we going to do it? Only 4 of us can escape and there are 5 of us.
Thoughtful (speaking with her back to everyone, sitting on the floor with her eyes lost): You are afraid of what? You have already hit the bottom, this is a hole from which we will never get out, even if we are on the street, we will be fugitives of justice, of a justice with prison systems that do not reintegrate people into society, but turn scum into worse things, here nobody learns, nobody repents, we only learn to be human beings without feelings that only seek to save themselves.
Conciliator (looking at the pensive one): So? nobody cares about what we are and being here is no better than being in the street.
Fearful: I’m afraid, I won’t be able to, I didn’t hurt anyone, I’m not a scum, I won’t be able to get out of here.
Haughty (getting up from the ground and walking to where the fearful one is): Shut up, stupid! You didn’t do anything, and why are you here, did you kill a cockroach, did you step on an ant, no, didn’t you?
Conciliator (pushing the haughty one away from the fearful one): Leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s scared?
Determined (speaking loudly and approaching): Well, only 4 of us can go, if you’re scared you stay, chicken!
Haughty (annoyed and pouncing on the determined one): Now yes, I told you not to say that word again.
They begin to struggle and the haughty one pulls out a knife, both fight very close to the fearful one, who begins to scream, at one point they get so close that she has no choice but to try to take the knife from the haughty one and in the struggle, she hurts the determined one who falls to the floor. While the conciliator tries to separate them and the pensive one continues without moving from her place as if nothing happened.
Conciliator (upset): she is dead!
The fearful one approaches the determined one who is lying on the floor, kneels down crying without speaking, brings her hands close to her. Until the words come out.
Fearful (still crying and trembling as she touches the determined one): I don’t feel anything, the power? What power? Now if I’m scum, harming doesn’t give power, what did I do?
Pensive (still with a lost look and without looking at the scene behind her): Welcome to the prison world, now you are part of us.
Haughty (passing over the determined one): Well, now we are 4.
The fearful one, begins to cry over the determined one while they all look at her welcoming her to her new reality.
THE END