Part of Out of the Wings Festival
“Should we cry over things?
Is it better to burn them?
To build a bonfire with what’s left here?
To turn them into a huge, blue, yellow fire?
A fire in the night
That warms the skin of the people left behind”
After many years away, Alex returns reluctantly to Santiago to clear out his late mother’s flat. Buried in grief and surrounded by family possessions acquired over decades, his only wish is to empty the apartment and fly back to the States as soon as he possibly can. But when Sandra, a scatterbrained cashier from the supermarket across the street appears on his doorstep, he finds himself forced to confront the memories that he would rather have left behind. And as Sandra’s young colleague steps in to help clear out more of the old woman’s bric-a-brac, the truth is quietly revealed of why this apparently innocent cashier walked into Alex’s life in the first place. Or rather, of how on one ordinary day like any other at her checkout, Alex’s life walked uninvited into hers.
Gabriela Aguilera’s poignant, heartwarming play takes a poetic, bitter-sweet look at loss, the meaning of home and family, and the power of the kindness of strangers.
The English translation of Cassandra, Sandra was made possible thanks to a collaboration between the Chilean Cultural Ministry and the British Council.
Writer
Gabriela Aguilera (Chile)
Translator
William Gregory
Director
Kate O’Connor
