Silencio Juan Mayorga / Blanca Portillo

The playwright Juan Mayorga puts his admission speech for the RAE onstage through Blanca Portillo’s performance. 

Dressed up in a suit which does not fit him, the playwright is going to join the Academia with a discourse entitled Silencio (silence). 

His audience is formed by the other academics present in his dais and by the people supporting him –family, friends, mates, authorities, unknown people...- He has made the final decision of speaking about the silence present both in life and in theatre. He also aims to travel through theatrical silences that echo in his memories and in his body.  

As it happens to spectators, these silences can make him face the real silences of his own life. Maybe he is tempted to shut up. Maybe silence, which is the base and determiner of discourse, puts discourse itself at risk. Maybe it is more important for us to listen to silence rather than to listen to words, both for the speaker and for the listener.