ABSTRACT
While Juan Mayorga frequently deploys irony and absurdist comedy within a dramatic register, Jordi Galceran writes comedies that have made him, in words of his press team, the ‘Rey Midas del teatro español’. Killing Words’ rhyming wordplay presents particular demands on translators and this may be one reason why despite enjoying runs in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Medellín, and Mexico City, it has been translated less widely than Galceran’s later plays. Mayorga has German ask Claudio to stay away from his house while the teenager closes narrative, trumping his past mentor as he shifts story’s focus from Ester to Juana. Mayorga’s theatre is underpinned by a belief that theatre contributes to ‘those images of the past that nourish and foster what we call “collective memories”. It is a theatre rooted in the need to bring the past into the present and one which has proved particularly resonant in a country still coming to terms with legacy of 36-year dictatorship.
