Theatre Journal

Since his first appearance in El burlador de Sevilla (1630), the figure of serial womanizer Don Juan has loomed large in literature. While the protagonist’s deceitful antics have been revered and even emulated by many, little consideration has been shown to his victims and others unfortunate enough to cross his path. Yet with the emergence and rise of fourth-wave feminism empowering the individual and demanding acknowledgment of widespread abuse, there is a new and increasing pressure to look back and to reconsider injudicious idolatry and unthinking acceptance of problematic characters. As a result, new theatrical projects are now beginning to reimagine once-celebrated narratives to finally give voice to those who had been silenced. Inés de Ulloa, inspired by José Zorrilla’s Don Juan Tenorio (1844), is a masterful example of this careful reimagining.

Like its source text, this one-woman play is set in early modern Spain, but rather than adhering to Zorrilla’s narrative, it highlights the tragic consequences of Don Juan’s actions and tempers his legend with the torment it disregards. Contrary to Zorrilla’s text, which relates Inés de Ulloa’s death, Rubio’s play finds its title character alive and well, cloistered in a convent where she has been sequestered since her fateful encounter with Don Juan. While alone in her room, Inés is interrupted by the arrival of a man who, it transpires, is the now-elderly Don Juan himself. Having learned that Inés is still alive, he has come to see her and hear her side of the story. Over the course of the play, Inés relates their love story from her perspective, revealing what really happened to her, and explaining how their meeting changed the course of her life forever. The production at the Courtyard Theatre, however, had an unexpected twist: the man with whom Inés speaks never actually appeared on stage. While this decision certainly had the potential to undermine the sincerity of the performance, in actuality it produced two productive outcomes.

Firstly, the absence of the male figure on the stage allowed Inés both literally and physically to appropriate the voice and body of the man responsible for violating hers. The empowerment achieved through this appropriation was patent in the inverted power [End Page 369] dynamics whereby it was Don Juan, rather than Inés, who was held captive, unable to escape the room until Inés finished her piece. At times this appropriation was physical—at one point Inés seized the candlestick from her nightstand and danced back and forth, jousting with her invisible opponents as she embodied Don Juan. On other occasions, the appropriation was linguistic—Inés repeatedly recited the words that Don Juan once wrote to her, so much so that they became devoid of meaning and the audience experienced the confusion she felt at their emptiness. Initially, these various moments of appropriation were calm, even playful, but as the play developed so too did its violence. Finally, the audience was confronted with Inés’ rape. As Inés relived her rape, she was forced back into her own body and into a familiar experience. Meanwhile, the lighting, scenography, and staging combined to immerse the audience in her torment. The blood-red lighting, matching the words inscribed on the underlayer of her habit, flashed on and off as the actress violently threw her body around the stage. The unsettling silence that followed was punctuated, at first, by her sobs of hurt and anger as she crawled along the stage underneath the bed, and then by the screeching sound of the bed being dragged along the floor, the deliberately painful noise causing the audience to experience for themselves at least a fraction of Inés’ agony. The voyeuristic position that the production made the audience assume mimicked the...