Caray, Caray!

We have a special treat provided to us by commenter Audrey. She was fortunate (and smart) enough to see Fernando Colunga LIVE in the play ¡Manos Quietas! She has generously provided a recap of the play for our enjoyment. Take it away Audrey...


Recap by Audrey


¡Manos Quietas! is a play written by Catalán author Piti Español which premiered in Madrid in 2010. Fernando Colunga liked the script and the Mexican production team adapted it to Mexican slang and recent pop TN culture. Currently on tour in the US, I saw it in McAllen on 11/4.

This one act play is set in a classroom at the end of the school year, where Manuel and his (almost ex-)wife have an interview with the (female) principal about their son’s progress.

* Fernando Colunga plays Manuel, an almost divorced husband and father, down on his luck. He thinks he is just in a trial separation with his wife.
* Giselle Blondet plays Esme, the principal, into politically correct inclusive language regarding gender and totally against corporal punishment.
* Lorena Rojas plays Aurora, Manuel’s about-to-be-ex wife, a real bully of a man-eater who is dumping Manuel because she is involved with another parent.
* Aylin Mujica plays Sra. Sonia Cortejo - the hysterical mother of a kid hit by a parent at the recent school picnic.
* Johnny Lozada plays Cristóbal - the school’s “pre-tech” teacher.


The main themes of the play are: political correctness; gossip; hypocrisy; and, um, maybe taking some things to extreme? I’d say another theme unique to this Mexican version is watching FC in a most unusual situation!

The play was really a hoot. Even if you are dependent on captions for watching Spanish TNs, you will still get a lot of it, especially if you read the recap ahead of time. The play is very physical with lots of exaggerated acting at times, so you’ll get tons of cues. And plenty of eye candy for both sexes and a few TN-related inside jokes.

The scenes are somewhat combined for brevity to cover the main plot and highlights. Some things are likely out of order anyway - after all, this is from memory, and I didn’t think of recapping it until afterwards.

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Cristóbal, a teacher, sweeps through the classroom straightening tables, and setting the room right. Esme, the school principal, comes in. They gossip about the shocking happenings at the recent school spring picnic where they had a big game between the Amarillos and Azules - those parents just love the colored shirts! But it seems one of the parents was seen making out with another (not her husband) - shocking! And even more shocking, one of the parents hit another parent’s kid! Unfortunately the kid’s hysterical mother is on the warpath and wants to sue/report the school! They both leave the room.

In marches Manuel (FC) [to massive applause, of course] dressed in a suit with briefcase and here for the interview with the principal about his son. He practices his speech to convince the principal to buy these new computers specialized for kids education. He’s under the gun financially - he recently lost his job at the car dealership.

[At this point you know who the main characters are and a bit of their background and prejudices, the premise, the gossip from the spring (picnic) party with yellow and blue teams and that Manuel and Aurora are recently separated at Aurora’s instigation. So this would be a place to stop if you are pretty fluent in Spanish and you wanted to see the play before reading the rest of the recap. If your Spanish is not so solid, reading ahead will help you follow the main plot, and there is still plenty of peripheral action that I did not cover.]

The principal, Esme, returns. Manuel is early! His wife knew the appointment was for half an hour later. Manuel pulls a blue t-shirt out of his briefcase and asks if he is supposed to return the shirt from the school picnic. They talk about his children. The principal has this pet peeve about gender prejudice in the Spanish language, and insists that all plural nouns be inclusive of both genders. For example, Manuel doesn’t have “dos niños”, he has “un niño y una niña”. Manuel, in salesman mode, gets with the equality-in-noun-gender program and works hard to convince Esme that her school should buy these great (iPad like) computers! But unfortunately, the batteries are dead so his demo bombs.

The subject changes to hitting children. Esme has heard rumors that Manuel was the parent who hit Sra. Cortejo’s kid at the spring picnic. Oh no! He might have rubbed the kid’s head a bit rough in play, but no hitting! Unfortunately for Manuel, Esme gets him to reveal that he doesn’t believe in no corporal punishment under any circumstances and might have spanked his kids once or twice. Manuel is subjected to a huge lecture.

Aurora, his (almost ex-)wife sails in. She lambasts Manuel for all sorts of injustices. Esme adds her disapproval that Manuel still believes in corporal punishment. And she has reason to believe that he hit another parent’s kid at the spring picnic! Horrors! Manuel denies anything more than maybe roughhousing with the kid a bit. Aurora takes advantage as she plans to fight for custody of the kids.

In sails the hysterical mother, Sonia (Aylin Mujica in new-age gypsy hippie garb), going on and on about her poor traumatized kid. Her kid told her Manuel was the culprit. Manuel emphatically denies it. Esme gangs up since Manuel had admitted he might have administered a spanking or two. Aurora piles on as well, claiming this shows what an unfit father he is! They go on as Manuel (yes, macho FC), cringes with the harangues, protesting and denying.

Crazy mother Sonia and principal Esme leave the room to talk to the poor traumatized kid who has been left alone in Sonia’s car (shock!!!). Manuel leaves to use the restroom. Aurora phones her new lover, Paco Menendez to tell him: “You know that kid you hit at the school picnic? Well, the hysterical mother is at the school ready to denounce everybody!” She’ll see what she can do, otherwise his PTA position might be in jeopardy!

When Manuel returns Aurora starts getting on his case again. This time, she tries to browbeat him into “confessing” even though he denies it emphatically. Finally, she cajoles him with offers to “maybe” reconsider their separation and her attempts to take away the children. Just go ahead and take the blame, and then the school won’t get sued, and everything will be hunky-dory.

Sonia and Esme return. After another round of escalating haranguing and denials from Manuel with Aurora claiming otherwise, Manuel decides to just go ahead and say he did it and apologize.

But poor Manuel - now he is from the frying pan into the fire! Rather than calming down, the ladies go ballistic. He apologizes and apologizes and begs forgiveness. With the apologies, Sonia is somewhat mollified and decides maybe she won’t sue anybody after all, and almost leaves. But wait! What a great idea she has (as her ideas are always brilliant!). She’s taking acting classes and Tai Chi which she mimes elaborately. She’ll publish an interview with an “admitted kid-hitter” - where Manuel admits how very wrong he was. As a lesson to everybody!

Manuel doesn’t like this - hey no fair! Manuel mimics Sonia’s taking “acting classes” and “tai chi” which has FC doing an elaborate tai chi parody that has the audience screaming with laughter. This totally sets Sonia off, she’s going to sue Manuel and the school!!! Oops!

Manuel backs down. The ladies decide that if just, for once, he agrees to see what it is like to be a woman, they might let him off the hooks. OK, he’ll try to understand and cooperate!

Sonia finds some cord and ties Manuel’s hands behind his back. Oh, no, Manuel doesn’t like that! The ladies complain about men who are always checking out their bust and behind. One of them unbuttons part of Manuel’s shirt and two ladies rummage about inside complaining about how men always just want to grab their breasts. Another complains about having to wear heels all her life and grabs his necktie pulling up to make him tip-toe around as if he were wearing heels. Finally, one of them unbuckles his pants and pulls them down around his ankles!!! [The audience is just screaming at this point]. He’s wearing fairly modest knit black undies and almost knee-length black socks. Nice legs FC!

Poor FC is hopping around the stage for quite a while with his pants around his ankles, pinched and poked and thoroughly woman-handled with threats of more. They very much tease the audience with what these out-of-control ladies might do next!

And imagine what it would be like, they admonish him, to be caught, terrified, on a dark street with three nasty guys, stronger than you are, harassing you. They call him !puta! and ¡zorra! and act like men demeaning a helpless woman they have cornered.

Aurora claims that now that he is an admitted kid-hitter, no way is she going to let him have custody of the children.

Finally Cristóbal comes in, shocked at this outrageous scene. He quickly unties Manuel and scolds the ladies. Manuel is able to put himself back together. “¡Pinches Viejas!” yells Manuel, and the crowd roars.

The ladies explain to Cristóbal that they were just giving Manuel a bit of “education” about how women are subjugated to all sorts of harassment. Manuel tries to get Cristobal to sympathize with him, but unfortunately gets too macho about it. This sets Cristobal off who, now revealed as a gay person, feels that he of everyone is by far the most harassed and handicapped. He scolds everyone using every possible gay cliché and physical parody, of course.

A distant car alarm goes off. Oh, no! Sonia freaks! It must be her kid who still locked in the car!!!! Off she runs again.

Manuel has had enough, and talks about his poor beleaguered life. How he has had to work hard and provide for everyone, and he thought he had accomplished his dream in marrying Aurora and having children, and now Aurora doesn’t want him anymore. And he’s been fired from his job, and kicked out of the house, and his wife is trying to take the kids away from him! He goes on and on about the trials of a man in today’s society. He even calls himself a poor a**hole! He gets a huge applause for his elaborate woe-is-me speech. Aurora taunts him. “Yeah, bravo! Great theatrical performance! What do you think - that there is a big audience out there listening to you?” [nudge-nudge, wink-wink, LOL!]

Sonia returns. Oh - her kid is so traumatized, he can’t even stand the color yellow anymore! Yellow? asks Manuel. Wait a minute - he was on the blue team! But Sonia says her kid knows that man who hit him was Aurora’s husband, because he was kissing Aurora under the stairs right beforehand! OOoooops! Manuel pulls out his blue team t-shirt and declares that furthermore, he was never under the stairs! Aurora is outed! Now Sonia is livid all over again. She’s going to sue Paco Menendez and it’s all going to come out and he won’t be re-elected to the PTA! Manuel suggests that Sonia, with all her theatrical and tai-chi training maybe should do that brilliant idea interview with Paco Menendez now, since he is the established kid-hitter. Sonia runs off all energized, and Aurora after her, trying to do damage control.

Manuel asks “What about the interview about my kid?” “Well,” Esme points out, “it’s gotten pretty late now, we had better do that another time.” With all they have put him through, asks Manuel, couldn’t Esme consider buying several of these great specialized computers for children? Manuel thinks the school should buy one for every student! Esme is not so sure. Manuel suggests they go out for dinner, and discuss this in an environment more conducive to um, discussion. Oh, now Esme is interested! She sidles over to Manuel, fishing for compliments. They embrace as Manuel assures her that, with her, no man could keep his manos quietas (hands still). CURTAIN!

Bows. And the audience rushes the stage with their camera phones going crazy - LOL!
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Throughout the play they had fun with different phone ringtones for different characters, always some well known theme. A fun example near the end, (after she was established as the guilty party), Aurora’s phone plays the “Esa Hembra es Mala” theme from Teresa before she finally picks it up.

Plenty of just slightly off-color Mexican slang also - things that never seem that bad to me (like references to big goats and eggs (LOL!)) but always seem to get a Mexican audience roaring.

Of course the biggest joke of all enjoyed by the audience is seeing Fernando Colunga in a role completely opposite of his normal ultra-galán role. Tied up and touched all over by three rabid women? - surely some of the ladies in the audience wished they could join in the fun. Obviously FC chose this role for the irony and maybe a refreshing break from the usual? We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

US Tour Dates (posted by Variopinta a week ago - this is the most complete list I could find on the internet)
Brownsville TX 11/3, McAllen Tx 11/4
Chicago 11/6,
Miami (Coral Gables) 11/11,12,13,19,20,21
Laredo Tx 11/22, Eagle Pass Tx 11/23
L.A. 12/2,3,4,9,10,11

I get the impression from various interviews and articles that this US tour is actually the initial run for the play, trying it out before committing to a more extensive tour. I hope you get to go see it!

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