Title: “If you want to have it all, make an effort”.
Author: Clara Pérez
2 characters:
- Alexander: A man with a complex who complains about his life.
- Miguel: Successful man who teaches him a lesson.
SINGLE ACT
Setting: Corner of a square.
Introduction: Alexander is sitting on the sidewalk of a square, killing time without doing anything useful when Miguel passes in front of him.
Alexander (mockingly): Look who’s coming! The rich guy from the neighborhood.
Miguel (trying to continue on his way): Hello Alexander, how are you?
Alexander (taking him by the arm): But, come on, now you’re talking to the riffraff?
Miguel (pulling his arm free): What riffraff? The people in this neighborhood don’t seem like riffraff to me, I grew up here, besides, my mother still lives here.
Alexander (ironically): Yes, but since you are now an engineer and live in a rich place, you have a car and a pretty wife, us, who came from the neighborhood must seem inferior to you.
Miguel (looking uncomfortable): For me everyone is equal, some who tried harder and others less, but money doesn’t decide how much you are worth.
Alexander: What you had was luck.
Miguel (laughing ironically): Luck? Do you think luck would have given you everything you say I have now?
Alexander (shrugging his shoulders): Sure my friend, if I had been lucky enough to find a job like yours, that paid me that well, I would have left this neighborhood too.
Miguel (still smiling ironically): And how were you going to get it? Because to have this job I have, I had to study hard, get a degree and work since I was very young to be able to help my mother pay for my studies and to be able to have my things, did you do the same?
Alexander: No, I couldn’t study, I didn’t have the resources.
Miguel: I didn’t have money either, but I wanted to get ahead, and the little time I had free I used it to work and earn money to be able to study. Do you remember what you did while I was working in whatever I had to study?
Alexander: Well, I did go out with friends, I went to parties, I drank….
Miguel: And on the weekends when you went to the beach to spend more than you produced and you took money from your mother to go partying? Do you know what I did? I would stay up all night studying for my exams. So don’t think that luck is going to give you the things that others worked hard to have. People work for what they want, they fight for what they hope their life will be.
Alexander: So you didn’t get lucky?
Miguel (somewhat annoyed): No, I didn’t have luck, I had determination, and you still have time, stop wanting what others have with their effort and strive for what you want, get up from that sidewalk and go out to work, work day and night, save and set yourself a goal. You make your own luck and to have what others have, you have to work as hard as they do. You are not a rabble, you are a conformist.
Miguel begins to walk away leaving Alexander not knowing what to say.
Alexander (watching Miguel walk away and speaking loudly): All right then, I’m not lazy, you’re right, my friend.
THE END