a happy minute

Three women who could be one. Three voices that come together in a moment, in a place. La Menor, La Otra and La Mayor wait for a customer to enter the cafe where they work. But no one shows up. “There is not enough kindness that can compete with so much well-exposed flesh,” says one of them. It is Chile on the verge of democracy, where its miniskirts are threatened by the novelty of cafes with mirrored windows and women who show more than their legs.

The prominent Argentine filmmaker and playwright Santiago Loza (La mujer puerca) was inspired by the imagery of cafes with legs to create A happy minute, a work that gives voice to three alone women. Women who smile and serve coffee with rouge, tacos and miniskirts, to feed fantasies, to be half mothers, half therapists, half lovers of gray guys who awaken more mercy than passion. Locked in a place that is refuge and risk, where there has never been a happy minute and where now there are no men either. Then they speak, their souls and their loneliness.

“A happy minute is built on an intimacy, the secret feeling of a group of exposed women. Areas of the soul that belong to all of us, on both sides of the mountain range and beyond. A certain loneliness, humor and hidden melancholy. The feelings that cannot be uncovered, what is not said, what is so fragile and ephemeral, will be forgotten,” says Loza.

The playwright created the work in a residency held at GAM last year. Loza was summoned to work alongside the team put on stage by Hilda Peña: director Aliocha de la Sotta, actress Paula Zúñiga and designer Rocío Hernández. Initially it was thought of as a monologue, but field research changed the idea. "It had to be hybrid, that the characters were alone and at the same time with each other. That they had particularity, but at the same time, they could share a feeling. As if there was a great soul that unifies these women. The same sensation," says Loza. This is how Coca Guazzini and Caro Quito joined the cast. For the director "what happens in the play is that a woman finds herself. Like when one reconciles and finds peace even if it is in the most absolute solitude. That is very vindictive of women, because we are always told that we are not complete if there is no other. And the play says no! We are complete when we are alone."

Dramaturgy: Santiago Loza
Director: Aliocha de la Sotta
Cast: Coca Guazzini, Paula Zúñiga and Caro Quito
Lighting and set design: Rocío Hernández
Sound design: Fernando Milagros
Photo credit: Jorge Sánchez
GAM co-production

Previous Seasons

A Happy Minute is a GAM co-production and premiered on May 5, 2016 and was in theaters until June 4.

Then the play was presented at the Teatro Oriente in September and had its second season at GAM between November 4 and 27, 2016.