Theatre
Going Down to Morocco
Bajarse al moro
José Luis Alonso de Santos · 1985
Synopsis
A narrow, dilapidated flat in Lavapiés, in old Madrid. Chusa lives there with her cousin Jaimito, who makes sandals, and with Alberto, a young policeman. She brings back Elena, a girl from a good family who has run away, and proposes that she go with her to Morocco to bring back hashish, the trip known in slang as “bajarse al moro”. Between the schemes to pay for the trip and the visits that disturb them, the little community improvises a life on the margins, made of expedients and tenderness.
Context
The play premiered in 1985 and ran for several years. It continues its author's costumbrista vein and owes much to the sainete, the short popular comedy of the early twentieth century: a single setting, endearing losers as characters, the language of the street. It gives voice to the slang of Madrid's young people in the eighties. Fernando Colomo brought it to the screen in 1989; it was translated into French in 1997 and into English in 2013.
Who it is for
A comedy in two acts, written in a popular idiom strongly marked by its period; “bajarse al moro” means going down to buy drugs in North Africa.
Prizes and reception
National Theatre Prize and Tirso de Molina Prize; it is the best-known play of its author, adapted for the cinema in 1989.
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