La intérprete

A contemporary play by Juan Mayorga about a simultaneous interpreter who, after a conference, discovers that the words she has translated stay inside her and will not leave her in peace.

Juan Mayorga writes the text and directs this unpublished play, which reaches the stage for the first time in the Sala Juan de la Cruz at the Teatro de La Abadía. The protagonist, Sonia, works as a simultaneous interpreter and, when a conference ends, finds that the words she has translated do not disappear when the working day is over. They settle inside her, keeping her from sleeping and making her feel that they are transforming her.

Unable to shake them off, Sonia goes out at night to wander the city in search of someone who can help her. That journey brings language, identity and conscience into play and forces the protagonist to confront the power that words can exert over a person. Mayorga does not conceive of language as something foreign to the individual, but as a substance that runs through them and may end up becoming part of them.

The cast includes Natalia Hernández and Juan Paños. The production belongs to one of the dramatist's central lines of inquiry: how language organises our existence and how words pass from one body to another, leaving a mark on whoever receives them. It is staged in a theatre that programmes mostly contemporary theatre, with production by the Teatro de La Abadía itself.