“All Who Are Left,” a theatrical performance covering topics as broad as war and as personal as the search for identity, will premiere for the first time in the United States at USI.
The performance discusses the horrors of war, Nazi concentration camps and all of the outcomes of the World War II in Spain and the rest of Europe.
“There are people in Spain who think that it is better to forget, but for many, this is very problematic,” said Raúl Hernández Garrido, writer of the original Spanish version of the play.
This dilemma of silence after war is portrayed through the personal story of a young woman’s search for her father. Although she believed that he had died in the Spanish Civil War, she finds that he may have survived at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria. The play depicts her search to uncover the past, which was often buried.
Hernández Garrido is spending a semester at the university to teach courses in world languages and cultures and performing arts and to direct the performance of “All Who Are Left.”
“It was very exciting to direct a version of my original work as translated by Dr. Hitchcock because I usually direct versions of my own works in Spanish,” Hernández Garrido said.
The playwright said he has directed a few of his own plays in the past, but he typically prefers to bring in a fresh perspective to adapt his writing for a performance.
“In theater I think that it is very interesting that there are two halves, the written half and the directed half,” he said. “When I have to direct something that I have written, I make an effort to think that I am different as the director than as the writer.”
Hernández Garrido said his role could be described as “schizophrenic,” since he first created the story with the mentality of a writer and then took on the role of director to bring the words to life on stage. This meant cutting some of his original words to make the play as concise and powerful as possible for a live audience.
“People who are not familiar with the theatrical process don’t know that it’s not that common for a playwright to direct his own plays,” David Hitchcock said. “Usually you turn it over to someone else, and then you’ve washed your hands of it.”
Hitchcock translated Hernández Garrido’s play “Todos Los Que Quedan” into the English adaptation. The associate professor said that it is also rather unusual for a playwright to write a piece in his own language and then come to the U.S. to work with the translated version.
“(Hernández Garrido) is kind of working between two languages in many ways and doing a fantastic job of it,” Hitchcock said.
Hitchcock said that when he first read “Todos Los Que Quedan” four or five years ago, he loved the theme that people have an inherent need to break the silence after a tragedy and put back together the fragmented pieces of their lives and, in this case, the life of a nation.
“All Who Are Left” takes place after the death of Francisco Franco, the fascist leader of Spain who controlled the country after the Spanish Civil War. The emerging leaders at the time made a decision that no one should talk about the past. They called this silence the “Pacto del Olvido,” the pact of forgetting.
“One of the messages of the play is the high price of silence,” Hitchcock said. “While it’s not the only artistic work in contemporary Spain or contemporary Europe that deals with these kinds of issues, it is one of the most poetic ones.”
Hitchcock said that “All Who Are Left” is a good play to bring to the U.S. because these topics are very accessible to an American audience.
Hitchcock said the performance will resonate with a broad audience and has many themes that are relatable today.
“The themes are relevant when you see the refugee situation from Syria,” Hitchcock said. “For example, and all of the atrocities that still occur in the world because of tribalism or religious doctrine.”
