They laugh until laughing makes them kiss. They are not the best dancers in the world. Lane watches her for a moment, then exits. Matilde gets out silver polish and begins polishing. Nurse-would you polish the silver, please.Ī doctor does not say: Nurse-would you polish the silver, please. I want you to do all the things I want you to do without my having to tell you.ĭo you tell the nurses at the hospital what to do? No, it’s just that-I don’t like giving orders in my own home. And I don’t want an interesting person to clean my house. You sound like a very interesting woman.Īnd I have met you in the context of my house, where I have hired you to clean. If I met you at-say-a party-and you said, I am from a small village in Brazil, and my parents were comedians, I would say: that’s very interesting. I understand that you have a life, an emotional life-and that you are also my cleaning lady. There was no one left to laugh at my jokes, so I left. Then my parents died, making me the first funniest. I was the third funniest person in my family. My parents were the funniest people in Brazil And then they died. Matilde-what did you do in your country before you came to the United States? Would you please clean the bathroom when you get a chance? When my mother died laughing, my father shot himself. A joke he took one year to make up, for the anniversary of their marriage. She was laughing at one of my father’s jokes. They argued, they said she choked on her own spit, but they don’t really know. Have you ever heard the expression ‘I almost died laughing?’ Well that’s what she did. It would kill her, she said, to have to spend her days laughing at jokes that were not funny. Even when they made love they laughed like hyenas. My mother and father did not look into each other’s eyes. We have never been apart since the day we met, because I always wanted to know the next joke. He used to say: your mother-and he would take a long pause- ( Matilde takes a long pause)-is funnier than I am. He said he would wait until he met his match in wit.Īnd then one day he met my mother. He did not marry until he was sixty-three because he did not want to marry a woman who was not funny. It was said that my father was the funniest man in his village. But if I were to die at any moment during the day, no one would have to clean my kitchen. Don’t misunderstand me-I’m an educated woman. She does not know if her husband is sleeping with a prostitute because she does not smell his dirty underwear. She does not know how long it takes the dust to accumulate under her bed. Something deeply personal-she has given up. My sister has given up the privilege of cleaning her own house. I’ve always wondered how one hospital can be more important than another hospital. If there were no dust to clean then there would be so much leisure time and so much thinking time and I would have to do something besides thinking and that thing might be to slit my wrists. If it were not for dust I think I would die. If you do not clean: how do you know if you’ve made any progress in life? I love dust. People who give up the privilege of cleaning their own houses-they’re insane people. I’m sorry, but I did not go to medical school to clean my own house. We took her to the hospital and I had her medicated and she Still Wouldn’t Clean.Īnd-in the meantime- I’ve been cleaning my house! My cleaning lady-from Brazil-decided that she was depressed one day and stopped cleaning my house. We can tell she is telling a joke even though we might not understand the language. Matilde tells a long joke in Portuguese to the audience. Or, a house that is not far from the city and not far from the sea. White couch, white vase, white lamp, white rug.Ī metaphysical Connecticut. This number may be changed from production to production if need be.Įveryone in this play should be able to tell a really good joke. *Ana is named as sixty-seven within the dialogue. In the first Act she plays Matilde’s mother. In the first Act, Charles plays Matilde’s father.Īna, a woman who is older than Lane*. He is child like underneath his white coat. Virginia, Lane’s sister, a woman in her late fifties.Ĭharles, Lane’s husband, a man in his fifties. Matilde, Lane’s cleaning lady, a woman in her late twenties. Lane, a doctor, a woman in her early fifties.
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