Angélica Liddell, Tragic Ecstasy and Tauromachy

Abstract Following its global premiere at the Avignon Festival, Angélica Liddell’s Solo te hace falta morir en la plaza was staged at the 2021 Grec Theatre Festival in Barcelona. Given that bullfighting was banned in Catalonia in 2011, the programming and performance of this taurine play lends itself to being interpreted as a deliberate provocation. In this article, my intention is to introduce an English-speaking audience to the work of Spain’s foremost performance artist and, at the same time, critically interrogate what is at stake, both aesthetically and ethically, in this theatrical paeon to tauromachy and tragic ecstasy. In the first section, I give an overview of Liddell’s personal and professional trajectory before, in the second, critically interrogating her interest in tauromachy. With this background context in place, the third and final section provides a close reading of the play in performance based on my own experience as a spectator in Orléans, France.