About the work
Ariel Dorfman wrote this chamber play in 1990 while in exile in the United States. It premiered on 9 July 1991 at the Royal Court Theatre in London, directed by Lindsay Posner, preceded by a preview production in Santiago, Chile in March 1991. The original Spanish title is 'La muerte y la doncella'; a German translation by Ulli Stephan and Uwe B. Carstensen appeared with Fischer in 1992.
Plot
In a beach house, Paulina recognises the voice of her torturer from the era of the Chilean military dictatorship in Dr. Roberto Miranda, whom her husband Gerardo, a lawyer, brings home as a good Samaritan. She ties Miranda up and demands a confession, while Gerardo tries to mediate between them. Through a calculated deception, Paulina finally brings the truth about Miranda's guilt to light.
Cultural significance
The play reflects Chile's reckoning with the Pinochet dictatorship shortly after the 1990 return to democracy and has been translated into some 25 languages and staged worldwide. In 1994, Roman Polanski adapted it into a film starring Sigourney Weaver.