Death and the Maiden (play) Totally Explained

Everything about Death And The Maiden Play totally explained

Death and the Maiden (La muerte y la doncella) is a play by Ariel Dorfman, first published in 1991. Dorfman is a Chilean exile, having escaped the regime of Augusto Pinochet.

Performance History

Death and the Maiden had a reading at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London on November 30, 1990:

Paulina - Penelope Wilton
Gerardo - Michael Maloney
Roberto - Jonathan Hyde
Directed by Peter James

A workshop production was staged and opened in Santiago, Chile, on March 10, 1991:

Paulina - Maria Elena Duvauchelle

Gerardo - Hugo Medina

Roberto - Tito Bustamante

Directed by Ana Reeves

Death and the Maiden had its world premiere at The Royal Court Upstairs on July 9, 1991:

Paulina - Juliet Stevenson

Gerardo - Bill Paterson

Roberto - Michael Byrne

Directed by Lindsay Posner

With the same cast and director, it transferred to the Mainstage at The Royal Court on November 4, 1991.

The American Broadway premiere of Death and the Maiden opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 17, 1992, produced by Roger Berlind, Gladys Nederlander and Frederick Zollo, in association with Thom Mount and Bonnie Timmermann:

Paulina - Glenn Close

Gerardo - Richard Dreyfuss

Roberto - Gene Hackman

Directed by Mike Nichols

The Characters

Paulina Salas - around forty years old

Gerardo Escobar - her husband, a lawyer, around forty-five

Roberto Miranda - a doctor, around fifty

The time is the present and the place, a country that's probably Chile but could be any country that has given itself a democratic government just after a long period of dictatorship.

Synopsis

Paulina Escobar is a former political prisoner in an unnamed Latin American country who had been raped by her captors, led by a sadistic doctor whose face she never saw. The rapist played Schubert's composition Death and the Maiden whilst she's raped by various prison guards; hence the play's title.
   Years later, after the (also unnamed) repressive regime has fallen, Paulina lives in an isolated country house with her husband, Gerardo. When Gerardo comes back from a visit to the president, he gets a flat tire. A stranger named Dr. Miranda stops to assist him. Dr. Miranda drives Gerardo home and later in the night he returns. Paulina recognizes Miranda's voice and mannerism as that of her rapist, and takes him captive in order to put him on trial and extract a confession from him.
   Unconvinced of his guilt, Gerardo acts as Roberto Miranda's lawyer and attempts to save his life. After hearing the full story of her captivity from Paulina, Gerardo formulates a confession with Roberto to appease Paulina's madness and set her free from her past.
   Paulina records the entire confession and has Roberto write it out and sign it. She sends Gerardo out to get Roberto's car so he can go home. While they're alone for the last time, Paulina accuses Roberto of being unrepentant and guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. She reveals that she lied to her husband in her story and that Dr. Miranda corrected the errors. The scene is cut off before Paulina finishes her speech and it's left up to the audience whether or not Roberto is killed.
   The final scene shows Gerardo and Paulina at a Schubert concert much later talking to people. Gerardo discusses the success of the committee he's on to investigate the crimes of the former regime. Roberto is seen at a distance also at the play and whether or not he's really there or just in Paulina's mind is also left up to the audience.
   Theme: Power and Control

Movie Adaptation

In 1994, Roman Polanski directed a film of the work, starring Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and Stuart Wilson.

Quotes

"To democracy. That someone knocks on your door at midnight and it’s a friend and not..." -- Gerardo (Pg 12)
   "It’s his voice. I recognized it as soon as he came in here last night." -- Paulina (Pg 23)
   "Paulina, I want you to know that what you're doing is going to have serious consequences." -- Gerardo (Pg 24)
   "You’re still a prisoner, you stayed there behind with them, locked in that basement. For fifteen years you’ve done nothing with your life. Not a thing. Look at you, just when we’ve got the chance to start all over again and you begin to open all wounds..." -- Gerardo (Pg 38)
   "I thought I’d have to convince you now, now that you know he really is guilty, I thought I’d have to convince you not to kill him." -- Paulina (Pg 62)
   “Find out what happened. Find out everything. Promise me that you’ll find everything that--” –- Paulina (Pg 10)
   “I always promised myself a time would come to recover him, bring him back from the grave so to speak.” – Paulina (Pg 21) – (Recovering the enjoyment of hearing Schubert through the justice Paulina would create for herself by killing Dr. Miranda.)
   “What the country needs is justice, but if we can determine at least part of the truth…” – Gerardo (Pg 15) – (Gerardo doesn’t want to get too involved in the job as Paulina’s case can come through and would get information that he wouldn’t like to know about.)
   “If you knew how much I love you. If you knew how it still hurts me.” – Gerardo (Pg 9) - (Playing with the feelings of Paulina to make her more calm and therefore change her mind.)
   “I want you. You. I want you inside me, alive. I want you making love to me without ghosts in bed and I want you on the commission defending the truth and I want you in the air I breathe and I want you in my Schubert that I can start listening to again” –- Paulina (Pg 56)
   “So I asked myself if we couldn’t use a broom. Yes, a broom, Gerardo, you know, a broomstick. But I began to realize that wasn’t what I really wanted – something that physical. And you know that conclusion I cam to, the only thing I really want? I want him to confess. I want him to sit in front of that cassette recorder and tell me what he did – not just to me, everything, to everybody – and then have him write it out in his own hand-writing and sign it and I'd keep a copy forever – with all the information, the names and data, all the details. That’s what I want.” -- Paulina (Pg 41)

“He takes an enormous nail out of his jacket pocket” – (Pg 4) - (The “enormous” shows the big consequences to come because of the nail, how it was Roberto who helped Gerardo. The “pocket” shows how the problems where saved, in this case in Paulina’s mind and how they were kept all the time and are now being exposed.)

“By the light of the moon she can be seen going to the drawer and taking out the gun” – (Pg 19) - (By using the moonlight it shows how the hope and reason is in Paulina when getting the gun. A sign of how she's clearly thinking of her actions.)

“To the president. That I needed time to think it over. Because first – first you've to say yes” –- Gerardo (Pg 8) - (Gerardo is thinking first about his wife and then of his career. It shows how thoughtful Gerardo is and how his life is composed of his wife and work.) (It must be noted that Gerardo has already told the president that he'd do it, so he's attempting to make his wife feel more important)

“My wife and kids have gone off to their mother’s of all places and as I hate to fly, and I’ve got some patients that--” –- Roberto (Pg 17)

Further Information

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