Background

According to UN reports, in 2010 there were 215 million children trapped in child labour, of which 153 million were children under 14 years (113 million in Asia), representing 13.3% of children in Asia. Sima Qian, the protagonist, could be any one of these millions of children, and Dogguan could be in China or almost anywhere in the developing world.

Characters

8 characters
5 male and 3 female roles
3-4 players

Synopsis

Hugo is eleven years old. He belongs to a conventional consumerist family, whose major interest is shopping on weekends. His parents do not get along, and his fifteen year-old sister is a trouble-maker. On Hugo’s birthday, he gets a pile of toys, as always. With them, however, is also a pair of Nabuk slippers, made ​​in China. When trying on the slippers, Hugo discovers a hidden letter from the child who made them, who has a similar family story: a father and mother who do not get along and a fifteen year-old sister (although, unlike Hugo’s sister, she too works in a factory). Parallel lives but a very different lifestyle.

History

2006: Synopsis developed in collaboration with Fermín Cabal during the workshop Composition and Structure of Scripts in Córdoba, Spain.
2006-2007: Writing of the play.