Smoko Theatre

LA TRAMPA — Scene Guide for English-Speaking Audiences
Written and directed by Manuel Saez. All rights reserved.

Scene 1: Opening A narrator welcomes the audience and sets the tone for the evening. They speak about the nature of light, memory, and time — how the past is always present, even when we try to forget it. The audience is invited not as spectators, but as participants in a session where the line between illusion and truth is dangerously thin.

Scene 2: Glitter and Makeup Two sisters, Rita and Marta, prepare backstage before their show. As they rehearse their act — a carefully choreographed system of coded signals and body movements — old tensions surface. Rita is anxious and controlling. Marta pushes back. Their relationship is complex, full of shared history, rivalry and dependency. Their oldest sister María interrupts and demands they pull themselves together. Tonight is too important to fall apart.

Scene 3: María — The Eldest Sister María, the manager and architect of their operation, confronts both sisters. She is sharp, calculating and unapologetic. She reminds them of everything she has done for them and makes clear that tonight must go perfectly. The three sisters are bound together by ambition, secrets and a lifetime of mutual reliance.

Scene 4: The Twins We meet Rómulo and Remo — twin acrobats and tightrope walkers from a travelling circus. As they prepare, Rómulo is haunted by a recurring vision he cannot control: a dead dog on the street where he grew up, and a name — Mario Moreno Opazo — that keeps appearing in his mind. Remo is worried. This obsession is becoming dangerous. Tonight they have been invited to a private session, though they are not sure why.

Scene 5: The Show Begins María opens the evening with a hypnotic speech to the assembled guests. She describes her sisters as gifted women with a rare ability to connect with those who have passed. She builds anticipation and trust, framing what is about to happen as something beyond performance — a genuine experience of contact with the other side.

Scene 6: The Ritual Rita and Marta perform their act. Marta, blindfolded, appears to receive messages from beyond. Through a secret system of knocks and body signals, the sisters create the illusion of spiritual contact — describing a man's glasses, a song he used to hum, a final message for a woman named Norma. The performance is flawless.

Scene 7: María's Transition María addresses the guests again, guiding them deeper into the session. She speaks about memory, grief and the human need to find answers in the face of loss. She invites anyone who feels called to speak. Rómulo raises his hand.

Scene 8: The Guests and the Twins Rómulo shares his recurring vision. The sisters take control, weaving his words into their act. María facilitates, directing the session toward the twins. What begins as a controlled performance starts to shift — the twins are becoming something the sisters did not plan for.

Scene 9: The Connection Rita guides both twins and Marta into a deep trance. What emerges is unexpected — through the twins, a voice speaks of Mario Moreno Opazo, his mother Marcela, a car accident, a lifetime of grief. A song surfaces. The guests are moved. The sisters manage the situation brilliantly, but something has changed. This no longer feels entirely fake.

Scene 10: Something is Wrong The twins begin moving like tightrope walkers in a trance — their bodies telling a story the sisters cannot control. What emerges from them is no longer personal memory, but something larger: the history of a continent, disappeared people, forgotten civilisations. The sisters try to follow and interpret, but they are no longer leading. Verses from Pablo Neruda's Alturas de Macchu Picchu begin to flow through the twins, speaking of ancient suffering, loss and the weight of Latin American history.

Scene 11: The Trance The twins reach a breaking point. Together, almost as one voice, they speak the famous lines of Neruda — calling on the dead to rise, naming the silenced and the enslaved, demanding that their stories be remembered. It is overwhelming. The twins collapse to the floor. The room is shaken.

Scene 12: The Silence The guests, deeply affected, repeat the twins' final words together. The silence that follows is not peaceful — it is the pressure before something breaks.

Scene 13: One The first guest speaks. What she heard through the twins has unlocked something private — grief for her mother, a love she lost, a homeland she left behind. Her monologue moves between personal loss and collective memory, connecting her own story to the larger history that was just revealed.

Scene 14: Two The second guest responds. A man's voice haunts her — someone who spoke of a lost country, of danger and resistance. The words the twins spoke echo in her, refusing to leave. She unravels something she has been carrying for years.

Scene 15: Three The third guest processes what she witnessed through the lens of her own childhood — a sister, a city under political tension, a slow emotional freezing that she only now recognises. She speaks to her absent sister and to the memory of all that was lost.

Scene 16: Four The fourth guest speaks of a disappeared loved one — someone who lived in the shadows of political danger and never came back. The twins' words were her message. His grief is raw and direct. He tends to the twins with care, as though they were angels who fell from the wire.

Scene 17: The Accusation The guests turn on the sisters. They demand answers. They know something went wrong — or perhaps too right. The sisters begin to crack. Their composure falls apart. María blames her sisters. Marta turns on María. The fraud is on the verge of being exposed.

Scene 18: The Confession Rita breaks. She confesses everything — the coded knocks, the years of deception, the system of signals hidden in their bodies. What began as a childhood game became a life built on lies. She is not asking for forgiveness. She is asking to be forgotten. She tells the guests to call the police. The lights go out.

END