Tell Me the Whole Thing Again

When their eyes meet in the dressing room over a basket of plastic apples, a young, hope-filled ingénue and a jaded bit-player form a bond of ambition that knows no limits.  Aiming to take control of the repertory company that employs them, they soon become unstoppable in their race to the abyss of success; there will be no betrayal, no revenge, no crime that they will not commit.  Standing now on the edge of the precipice, they are forced to reconstruct the story they have starred in, to reinvent themselves over and over again and re-tell the tale that has brought them to places even they had not expected. A romantic thriller with touches of black comedy, Tell Me the Whole Thing Again is an age-old spell freely inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. A violent reflection on the society of our times, with theatre riding on its back.

I’m stretched out on the couch and the hours pass by. I ruminate on the paradoxes of life: the wonderful play I hold in my hands, and the shitty part I’ve been given to play. The one I’ve been playing since I joined the company at fifteen years old. One of those. One that talks and appears in a corner, one that’s in several scenes with the protagonist but doesn’t really add anything, just the necessary blah-blah-blah for the latest dandy to express all the richness of his inner world. Ring any bells? The one you see wedged in the corner of the poster or the press photos, in those photos mothers keep framed in their living rooms, the one who’s always in the second row, the whole team and me behind them, my character in the background, slightly hidden behind the lead actress’s shoulder. One of those who’s first to come out during the curtain call, the one who gets least ovation, the one who has to put up with the humiliation of receiving reluctant applause, and seeing that applause increase more and more with every other cast member that comes out onstage. A nobody the audience only claps out of courtesy. Who nobody interviews, nobody asks for an autograph…    

This translation of Tell Me the Whole Thing Again was originally commissioned for the Arca Images world premiere production at the Miami Dade County Auditorium, Miami, in August 2021 (pictured below, starring Laura Alemán and Adrián Más; photos by Julio de la Nuez).

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Other works by Abel González Melo: Weathered, Abyss, Outside the Game, Kiddo (Chamaco).