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In a newly published paper, 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 Emmy Herland explores how the very old story of Don Juan remains relevant through its ghosts

Time and the popular imagination have been kind to Don Juan鈥攑erhaps too kind.

As written in 鈥淓l burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra鈥� by Andr茅s de Claramonte (previously attributed to Tirso de Molina) around 1635, Don Juan is a liar and unrepentant manipulator who falsely promises women marriage to coerce them into sex. He fights and kills the father of one of his victims and the father, Don Gonzalo, eventually returns to haunt Don Juan and drag him to hell.

These days, Don Juan has been smoothed into more of an incorrigible seducer and a shameless, though often charming, rogue. Little mention is made of dark intentions or a dark, perhaps absent, heart. It鈥檚 up to the ghosts to point those out.

In a of haunting and the Don Juan legend, Emmy Herland, a University of 蜜糖直播 Boulder teaching assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese, compares two modern theatrical adaptations of the Don Juan legend to highlight not only the vital role ghosts play in understanding the character, but to illuminate the theater as a meeting place between the living and the dead.

鈥淭here are a lot of reasons this play has lived on for so long,鈥� Herland says. 鈥淒on Juan is wealthy, smart, he has a lot of social pull and he is able to keep running away, keep getting away with how he treats women, and embodies a justice system that isn鈥檛 working. The supernatural aspect of the ghosts could be seen as a desire for justice鈥攖his idea that we can鈥檛 catch him, but God is going to come in and solve it.鈥�

Ghosts as messengers

Herland focuses on Octavio Solis鈥� 1987 鈥淢an of the Flesh鈥� and 鈥淒om Juan: Les morts ne sont pas morts鈥� by Jos茅 Gabriel L贸pez de Antu帽ano and Ignacio Garc铆a, first staged in December 2020 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Both adaptations present ghosts slightly different than the ghost of Don Gonzalo in the 17th听 century, but 鈥渨hat unites the spectral characters within the theater to the ghostly elements of the theater is the search for justice for the dead,鈥� Herland writes. 鈥淭hese adaptations, like the ghosts that they stage, revive the past in order to reveal something important about the present into which they are summoned.鈥�

Solis鈥� Don Juan is haunted by the ghost of his mother, who is accompanied by the ghost of Luis, brother of one of Juan鈥檚 victims, and the ghost of Anne, whom Juan considers his ideal woman and whom he smothered to death while declaring his love.

In 鈥淒om Juan,鈥� three of the ghosts are victims of his 鈥渟eductions鈥濃�攚omen he sexually assaulted and murdered, who revive his last victim, the brother of a woman he intended to rape, to help them pursue justice.

鈥淭he Ivory Coast adaptation is a one-act play,鈥� Herland explains. 鈥淭he women are killed very quickly and very early on, and it鈥檚 so unfair. You feel so mad at this character who鈥檚 just strangled all these women, who鈥檚 awful throughout the play, threatening to rape a fourth victim who he never actually rapes, but kills her brother. He鈥檚 horrible and you want to see him face justice, so it鈥檚 incredibly satisfying to believe the women could be the ones to fix it.鈥�

In Solis鈥� 鈥淢an of the Flesh,鈥� Don Juan is haunted by the ghost of his mother, Concepci贸n, who is conjured by her husband, looking for help managing their son鈥檚 behavior.

鈥淪he has a line where she says, essentially, 鈥業鈥檓 not responsible for how you鈥檝e turned out; the dead are not responsible for the living,鈥欌�� Herland says. 鈥淪he is also coming in to say, 鈥業 created this mess; this is my son, he鈥檚 not listening to his father, he didn鈥檛 listen to me when I was alive.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 also interesting because she is not a character whom he has personally wronged. In many adaptations, he is killed by the ghost of someone he killed鈥攖he unfinished ghost. It鈥檚 direct revenge, but we don鈥檛 have that here鈥攊t鈥檚 a different dynamic, a lot more complex. She鈥檚 revealed at the end to be an incarnation of death itself. She starts to violently seduce him, this death who is in form of his mother, to prove to him that seduction is wrong, that his way of seducing is really harmful to women.鈥�

鈥楾he story becomes the ghost鈥�

Adaptations of Don Juan are, in many ways, ideal for understanding the associations between haunting and theater, Herland says. Each adaptation is haunted by all previous iterations of the story it is telling, and each production is haunted by its text鈥攑erpetuating the haunting and allowing ghosts to haunt the audience.

In 鈥淒om Juan,鈥� the women he killed become a chorus of sorts, haunting not only him but the audience, 鈥渞eminding them of the violent injustices perpetrated against women every day,鈥� Herland writes. 鈥淚n other words, this chorus of women will not let Dom Juan forget his individual crimes, but they also will not let the audience forget the larger social inequalities that his actions represent.鈥�

That throughline from the 17^th century to modern times is what drew Herland to works originating more than 400 years ago in her undergraduate studies, before she was even aware of the area of humanities specifically studying spectrality and hauntology.

鈥淗ow do we talk about and stage the 17^th century now?鈥� Herland says. 鈥淗ow do we adapt it in a way that鈥檚 relevant now? In Solis鈥� play, some of the women Don Juan has previously impregnated, some of whom are underage, are also undocumented. When they say, 鈥榊ou have to make this right,鈥� he says. 鈥業鈥檒l just call ICE; you have no power here.鈥� So, there are a lot of issues that are incredibly relevant today.鈥�

The telling and retelling of Don Juan also raises issues of justice, and whether it is served in acts of revenge, Herland says. Does the omnipotent presence of ghosts alter the equation of justice?

鈥淚t鈥檚 so interesting to think about all adaption as ghostly and all theater as ghostly,鈥� Herland says. 鈥淚n theater adaptations of historical stories, why are we still talking about them? How are they still relevant? How are they still relevant in different parts of world, through history?

鈥淚 think it connects back to idea of history keeps repeating, which is a really ghostly idea. These stories are going to keep circling back, until we can imagine the story becomes the ghost.鈥�

Top image: "The Story of Constance and Don Juan" by听Hendrik Carr茅 (1710)

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