Why do we keep blaming the victims? “Jauría” turns the theater into a court that recreates a gang rape

Three in the morning. A woman trembles and sobs sitting on a bench in a deserted square. Her cell phone has been stolen, and her despair overwhelms her because she cannot call anyone for help, because she cannot tell anyone that she has just been raped by five men.

The name of the young woman would never be known, but the pseudonym given to her by the media would be: “The victim of ‘La Manada'”, outraged in 2016 at the San Fermín festivities, Pamplona; a town in northern Spain. Unwittingly, she became an inspiration to women who suffered sexual abuse around the world; her public denunciation inspired the #YoSiTeCreo movement, which in Latin America had an impact as great as #MeToo in the United States.

The mediatic case was the inspiration for the play “Jauría”, created from the transcription of the statements of the complainant as well as those of the accused, who reconstruct the devastating details at the request of the magistrates, judges, lawyers and prosecution.

“The questions they asked caused me a lot of indignation and pain. It seemed like a justice system, that what it does is blame us for the violations and ends up revictimizing us, that’s why I think it’s important to bring it to the stage. I do not think that a woman who summons up the courage to make a complaint should go through a process where they do not believe her and blame her”, comments Jennifer Aguirre Woytowski, producer and director of the staging, to El Comercio.

The production of the work is dynamic, and choreographed in detail. Both victim and victimizers become their own legal defenders through slight changes of posture and gestures. As the plot unfolds, each question is more forbidding than the next, putting viewers in the position of a jury, which will be forced to deliberate on the responsibility of the whistleblower.

“I think so too many men will become aware of when they have been abusers and exceeded the limit. Sometimes they don’t really reflect on what they are doing and [esta propuesta] It can help to stir something in them so that they question things that they did not do before.”, affirms Andrea Luna, protagonist of the work.

Despite the fact that five years have elapsed since the events detailed, Woytowski, like Luna, considers that the case is still valid and that it is necessary for the theater to put these issues on the table, to encourage the search for answers and break paradigms. “I think it is essential that a work like “Jauría” is on the bill so that it invites us to see it, take sides and also question what we are doing from our place so that this changes”. In addition, he seeks that the production be an invitation not to be silent and continue denouncing.

“I invite you to see the play, which will be at the Nuevo Teatro Julieta for only 12 performances until November 20. This is a documentary representation, to which no fictional text has been added, so it seems really necessary to question it. I hope you all go see itMoon ends.