Marriage Palavrakis: A Descent into Darkness
1. Biography and Works
Angélica Liddell, pseudonym of Angélica González, was born in Figueras, Girona, in 1966. A Spanish playwright and actress, she holds degrees in Psychology and Dramatic Arts. Her childhood was spent in constant movement across Spain due to her father’s military career. The hostile environment of military barracks, coupled with alleged abuses witnessed by her playmates, profoundly impacted Liddell. From a young age, she focused her work on lyrical and dramatic themes of pain, existential angst, violence, shattered childhoods, and the inherent evil in humanity.
Liddell’s playwriting career began in 1988. After completing her studies, she collaborated with the theater company Atra Bilis in 1993. Her first work, Greta Wants to Commit Suicide (1988), won the Alcorcón City Award. Subsequent plays include The Countess and the Importance of Mathematics (1990), The Mandrake’s Garden (1991), The Pink Room (1992), and Leda (1993).
The Mandrake’s Garden premiered in 1993, introducing recurring themes in Liddell’s work, such as ceremonial pain and suicide as redemption. These themes are conveyed through lyrical, baroque language interwoven with music and fine arts.
In Painful Constipation (1994), a more refined structure emerges, with the cast reduced to two characters, initially played by Liddell and Gumersindo Puche. This amplified the ritualistic confrontation, contrasting Puche’s enigmatic presence with Liddell’s childlike appearance.
Liddell’s career continued with Bite Your Braids, Convictions, and Love for the Suicide of a Deceased Unknown, further exploring suffering as purgative and redemptive. Frankenstein (1997) employed Japanese Bunraku techniques, bringing large puppets operated by actors to life.
Rejecting artifice, Liddell aimed to create a theater of stark reality, where humanity’s atrocious actions viscerally impact the spectator, echoing the British In-yer-face theater movement of the 1990s.
With Fake Suicide (1998), Liddell solidified her distinctive dramatic style, evident in the Triptych of Woe (Palavrakis Marriage, 2001; Once Upon a Time in West Asphyxia, 2002; and Hysteric Passio, 2003) and the Acts of Resistance Against Death trilogy (And the Fish Came to Fight Against Men, 2003; and And It Did Not Stink… Snow White and the Year of Richard, 2005).
Palavrakis Marriage, premiered in Madrid on February 22, 2001, presents the family as a structure of conflicting opposites, generating trauma, violence, and cruelty. The play reinforces Liddell’s pessimistic ideology, particularly her rejection of family and procreation.
2. Plot and Structure
Palavrakis Marriage recounts the story of Elsa and Matthew, childhood abuse survivors united by their shared hatred for their parents and a sick society. Their mundane life in a nondescript neighborhood, punctuated by dance competitions they consistently lose, masks deeper conflicts.
While united by their misanthropy, Elsa and Matthew hold opposing views on the human condition. Matthew embodies inherited cruelty, yearning for oblivion. Elsa, conversely, desires a child as a means of defying mortality.
Their daughter, Chloé, a victim of sexual abuse, enters this toxic environment. Elsa and Matthew project their guilt and fear onto their neighbors, obsessing over Chloé’s safety. Tragically, Chloé is murdered and dismembered at age seven.
Following Chloé’s death, the couple begins winning dance contests, but their marriage deteriorates. Elsa becomes fixated on her dog, treating it as a surrogate daughter, while Matthew indulges his violent impulses.
Matthew kills Elsa’s dog, symbolically killing Chloé again. In despair, Elsa causes a car accident, killing Matthew and leaving herself unscathed. At the police station, interrogated by the narrator (now a police officer), Elsa confronts her role in Chloé’s suffering and dies of a heart attack.
Palavrakis Marriage eschews linear storytelling, presenting disjointed scenes that challenge the viewer to reconstruct the narrative. The fragmented plot, punctuated by time jumps, creates a sense of unease and forces the audience to grapple with the play’s themes.
The play is divided into two parts, the first with twelve scenes and the second with four, separated by Chloé’s murder. A voiceover narrator introduces each scene, disrupting theatrical realism and creating a dreamlike atmosphere.
The first part opens with Elsa talking to her blind dog and Matthew on a plane, both reflecting on their traumatic childhoods. Subsequent scenes depict Chloé’s conception, marital conflict during Elsa’s pregnancy, further childhood regressions, nightmares about harming their unborn child, Chloé’s birth, and the parents’ fear of her being harmed or sick. The first part culminates in Chloé’s murder.
The narrative then jumps back to show Matthew and Elsa’s reaction to Chloé’s body, followed by a violent fight fueled by remorse and a discussion of Chloé’s funeral. The play concludes with a final sequence depicting the couple’s life after Chloé’s death, their success in dance competitions, the car accident, Matthew killing Elsa’s dog, and Elsa’s confession to the police.
The complex manipulation of time in Palavrakis Marriage will be further analyzed in a dedicated section.
3. Character Analysis
Elsa
Elsa desires a child, Chloé, and the enduring object of motherhood to transcend death. Her pessimism stems from a world view steeped in evil and the inevitability of death. However, she finds herself alone in her desire for life, facing opposition from Matthew.
Matthew
Matthew shares Elsa’s pessimism but desires death for himself and humanity as an escape from suffering. Confronted by Elsa’s opposing desire for life, he becomes isolated and unloving.
Liddell seemingly endorses Matthew’s destructive impulses by allowing Chloé’s abuse and murder.
Narrator
The narrator initially acts as a neutral observer, guiding the audience through the scenes. However, in the final scene, the narrator becomes a police officer, questioning Elsa. Present only through voiceover, the narrator functions as a dramatic device rather than a distinct individual.
Chloé
Chloé is defined by her age and beauty. In the final scene, Elsa reveals Chloé’s apparent love for her father, a hint of incestuous desire that, if not interrupted by death, might have elevated Chloé to a more complex character.
The characters in Palavrakis Marriage are complex, burdened by traumas, fears, and unconscious thoughts. They are fully realized dramatic figures whose inner lives illuminate the play’s context.
4. Time in the Play
The play’s complex, non-chronological structure demands audience participation in reconstructing Chloé’s murder and the absurdity of human existence. Time spans Elsa and Matthew’s childhoods to their deaths, focusing on three key periods: their childhoods, Chloé’s life, and their married life after her death.
The final section takes place several years after Chloé’s murder.
5. Dramatic Text
Palavrakis Marriage represents Liddell’s mature work and a prime example of In-yer-face theater. The text comprises dialogues, monologues, soliloquies, and narrator interventions.
The narrator’s addresses to the audience introduce the scenes and evoke oral storytelling traditions, drawing parallels between man and wolf. This breaks the illusion of naturalistic theater, engaging the audience in a critical dialogue.
The dialogues between Elsa and Matthew employ poetic language with surreal touches, repeating phrases that accumulate meaning throughout the text.
The poetic language carries symbolic weight, often foreshadowing events. The recurring image of dogs, identified with children’s innocence and vulnerability under the threat of adults, is one example.
Another disturbing symbol is the twisted motif of pedophilia. Matthew’s obsession with sweets and children stems from his father’s influence, believing that girls’ flesh is sweeter. After Chloé’s death, Elsa ensures her daughter has candy, perversely preserving her sweetness.