Bucket List

Theatre Ad Infinitum

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786821294
• eBook ISBN: 9781786821300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Bucket List tells the story of the fight for justice against the effects of the corrupt capitalist regime in Mexico affecting some of the world's poorest and most defenceless people. When her mother is murdered for protesting corporate and governmental corruption, Milagros finds herself with only a bloodstained list of those responsible. Determined to make them pay, Milagros embarks on a passionate quest for justice, no matter the cost.

PART ONE

The stage is bare. Throughout the play, all objects are mimed. Interaction between movement, text, light and music creates spaces and atmospheres. Performers play multiple characters switching from one to the other seamlessly. The actor playing MILAGROS doesn’t change. There’s a curtain made of strips of transparent plastic hanging all across the back of the stage. Behind it hang five coat hangers. The script is to be performed by five female actors and one female actor / singer. Live musician to one side of the stage.

Actors come in and form the shape of a bed. MILAGROS steps out of the bed.

MILAGROS: Sometimes it’s hard to know what is real and what’s not.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Ladies and Gentlemen, President Bill Clinton.

Through the curtain enters President Bill Clinton. The KIDS run in all different directions and disappear in the corners of the stage.

POTUS: In a few moments, I will sign three agreements, which will conclude our negotiations with Mexico and Canada to create NAFTA, The North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA means jobs. American jobs. Good-paying American jobs.

Now, for the last 20 years in all the wealthy countries of the world, the middle class has been under severe stress. Most Americans are working harder for less. The only way we can recover the fortunes of the middle class, the only way we can pass on the American Dream of the last 40 years to our children and their children for the next 40 years is to adapt to the changes which are occurring.

Now, most Americans don’t know this, but the average Mexican citizen – even though wages are much lower in Mexico, the average Mexican citizen is now spending $450 per person per year on American products. Now, that is more than the average Japanese, the average German, the average Canadian or British buys.

So when people say that this trade agreement is just about moving jobs to Mexico, how do they explain the fact that more Mexicans are buying more American products every year? Mexican citizens with lower incomes spend more money – real dollars, not percentages of their income – more money on American products than the average British, Germans, Japanese, Canadian. That is a fact. And there will be more if they have more money to spend. That is what expanding trade is all about.

1. HIDE AND SEEK

As soon as Clinton finishes his speech, KIDS run from stage corners to play the game. MILAGROS narrates intermediately stepping out of the action and back in to it.

BERTITA: 1…2…3…4…5…6…

MILAGROS: I was born on the day this speech was given. The day NAFTA was signed.

BERTITA: 7…8…9…10

MILAGROS: 11 years later, in an industrial town in Northern Mexico we were living with the consequences.

MILAGROS and VERE hide in a box – JOSUE is left outside.

BERTITA: (Turning around seeing JOSUE crouched and hiding behind his hands.) Ayyyyy no Josue, you’re supposed to hide!
Josue? (He’s not responding just keeps hiding behind his hand.)
Josue come on!

JOSUE: But I was hiding!

BERTITA: You weren’t hiding! You’re so stupid!

JOSUE: I’m not stupid. You are stupid.

MILAGROS: (MILAGROS pops out of the box in which she was hiding with VERE.) We used to play outside all the time. I loved all the kids in the neighbourhood. But my favourite one, was my cousin; Vere. (She gets back into the box.)

SINGER sings as MILAGROS whispers into VERE’s ear.

SINGER: (Singing.) I will throw a little stone and then they’ll look the other way, and we’ll capture the flag.

There’s a noise. The cast react, and run across the stage. MARIA enters.

2. THE LIST

MARIA: Milagros!

MILAGROS: I lived with my Mom in a little hut made of old American garage doors.

MARIA: Mila!!!

MILAGROS: I have to go!

VERE: Why?!

MILAGROS: My Mom is calling me…

MARIA and MILAGROS cross the stage spin around one another changing the space to the hut where they live.

MARIA: Milagros! I told you a hundred times, you have to stay close to the house! You were too far away Mila. It is dangerous!

MILAGROS: You used to let me play wherever I wanted, why is it dangerous now?… Mom?

MARIA walks USC to a Chessboard to continue a game they’ve been playing.

MARIA: Come, let’s carry on this game… Come on, it’s your move…

MILAGROS goes to the Chessboard, she looks at it.

MILAGROS: Mom, you moved the pieces!

MARIA: Excuse me??

MILAGROS: My queen wasn’t there?! And my knight was on this square?

MARIA: Well, at the very most I moved your queen, but I did not touch your knight…

MILAGROS: Mom!!!

MARIA: No! Of course I didn’t move your pieces, come on…, it’s your move!

MILAGROS: Mom, why is it dangerous now?… (MARIA doesn’t reply.)

MARIA: Come on…it’s your move…

MILAGROS: Mom?…

MARIA takes a letter out of her pocket and gives it to MILAGROS.

MARIA: I didn’t want to tell you, but it’s i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Characters
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three