The work impacts. To build it before taking it to the stage, seven young actors under the direction of the Mallorcan José Martret more than a dozen murders perpetrated by psychopaths were reported and advised. In the process of documentation, interpreters and director discovered facts and circumstances that they could never have imagined. Like the WhatsApp messages that one of the killers had sent to a friend when he had just executed a crime and was waiting for another family member to arrive to kill him as well. The documentary theater piece is titled #LaIRA and will be represented from January 13 to 17 in the Black Room of the Canal Theaters from Madrid.
#LaIRA, released in 2019 within the cycle Unstoppable of the exhibition New Creators, he tries to expose “the universality of violence” through thirteen crimes. The actors play the murderers themselves, with the idea of trying to understand their motives and to some extent putting themselves in their shoes. But be careful, not to empathize or sympathize – the director clarifies – since if it is already difficult to understand things like that, let’s not say we feel compassion for criminals instead of only doing it for their victims.
“We put the focus on these human beings, their environment, their motivations and the consequences of their actions,” say the actors
“We put the focus on these human beings, their affective and family environment, their origins, their motivations and the consequences of their actions. We try to get into their line of thought, their needs and their objectives without generating a value judgment”, they point out. the interpreters.
Martret explains it, for his part, taking as an example the case of the minor whose boyfriend was beheaded in Reus, two years ago, before jumping into the void: “I approach the direction of this project with empathy placed on the victims, in which they are no longer -he affirms-, but during the study and analysis of each one of the cases, I come into contradiction… “.
I feel total empathy and sadness for the 17-year-old girl beheaded by her boyfriend, but then I think of that 19-year-old boy capable of committing that atrocity and I can’t stop wondering why?
… “I feel total empathy and infinite sadness for the 17-year-old girl beheaded by her boyfriend,” she adds, “but then I think of that 19-year-old boy capable of committing this atrocity and I can’t stop wondering why? Where does this impulse come from? Is it caused by a genetic alteration or has something failed in their emotional and educational environment? What we want is to deposit this seed in the viewer to invite reflection.
Another image of the representation of ‘#LaIRA’
The director and actor is surprised, like any of us, by the frequency with which every day we read and see news of young people under 25 who commit brutal and “absolutely irrational” crimes.
For advice, the actors and the director had criminal lawyers, therapists and scientists who helped them understand the factors of violent psychopathy
During their investigations prior to the staging, Martret and the actors had the advice of Bárbara Royo, who served as defense attorney for José Bretón and Patrick Nogueira; with the therapist Judith Mesa Pérez, in her case to look for common denominators among criminals, and with scientists who helped them understand “the interaction of genetic, neurophysiological, neuropsychological, cognitive, family and social factors” that come into play in the violent psychopathy. A work, a document and, surely, a shock for anyone.
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