THE STAGE AS A PLACE OF META-THEATRICAL JUSTICE: THE DOCUMENTARY THEATER OF JAUME MIRÓ

Abstract

At a time when fact-based films and performances are at their peak, documentary theater has experienced a rise in popularity across Europe and the Americas in the last few years. This work assesses two plays written by Jaume Miro, one of the most prominent playwrights of the Balearic Islands, in light of the global debate about the function and aesthetics of documentary theater. The plays Diari d’una miliciana (2011) and Dels llargs camins (2014), which revolve around the Spanish Civil War, are examined in order to explore the imbrications of memory, justice, and documentary on stage. The analysis aims to enrich the study of the remembrance practices of the Spanish Civil War in the works of third-generation authors. I propose that Miro’s plays are “places of meta-theatrical justice” in which real characters and victims make a figurative transition to this kind of fiction and consciously obtain a form of justice that is not attained in the everyday world. Both plays become not only a censure of hegemonic discourses but also a restorative mirror of an unsatisfactory reality. They paradoxically contribute to burying, at least in part, a historical debt on stage.