Tribunal Theatre in Spain: Jauría and the La Manada Gang Rape

Abstract

Jauría (2019) was the first tribunal verbatim play in Spain and it had a great impact on audiences in the context of heated debate about how national legislation had a long-standing legacy of sexism. Based on the transcripts of the legal proceedings of the La Manada gang-rape case, Jauría not only clarifies this controversial case for different types of audiences, but it also poses very important questions concerning the nature of rape and how the judicial system treats the victims of rape. This article studies the performative force of tribunal verbatim in shaping the audience’s understanding of an actual gang-rape case and indicates how a feedback loop is created in the performance itself, transforming the spectators’ attitudes. Svetlana Antropova is a lecturer at Villanueva University in Madrid. Her recent publications include ‘Filming Trauma: Bodiless Voice and Voiceless Bodies in Beckett’s Eh Joe’, in Elspeth McInnes and Danielle Schaub, eds., What Happened? Re-presenting Traumas, Uncovering Recoveries (Brill/Rodopi 2019), and ‘De/Construction of Visual Stage Image in Samuel Beckett’s Play’ (Anagnórisis: Revista de Investigación Teatral, XXII, 2020). Elisa García Mingo is an associate professor in Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and is an associate member of the Centre for Transforming Sexualities and Gender at the University of Brighton.