Staging Postmemory: Self-representation and Parental Biographying in Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol’s El rumor del incendio

Abstract

Mexico in the 1970s was at the peak of what Vargas Llosa called its “perfect dictatorship” under the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). This perfection, however, did not preclude resistance from student groups, militias, and peasant movements. Decades later, theatre company Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol would stage this rebellion in their documentary play El rumor del incendio (2010) and its accompanying textual and digital publications. Director and actor Luisa Pardo plays both herself and her real-life mother, Margarita, in the play. This study examines the strategies used to convey the family ties between Margarita and Pardo, which include documentary evidence, bodily relationships, and genealogical connections. It shows the way that theatrical self-representation challenges the auto/biographical genre by blurring lines between biography and autobiography, as well as redefining drama, asking spectators to consider the stage as an alternative source of historical fact.