CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, March 31, 2026

For a High Priestess of Extreme Theater, Death Is Gentler Than Life

The New York Times: The Spanish theater-maker Angélica Liddell has taken her obsession with death to some disturbing extremes. Since the 1990s, she has played women who throw themselves out windows and hang themselves, expressed her fascination with cannibals and mass shooters, and described performing as her way “to avoid real suicide.”

1 comment:

CaspianComments said...

I had never heard of Liddell up until this point, but now I am extremely interested in her work. She sounds like quite the interesting individual as well. Something my mom has always said is that artists tend to be people who have suffered/suffering and/or are hurt/damaged, and being one of those people I agree with this. I think Liddell, with all eccentricities, is also this way. I am an artist who is also fascinated and fixated on themes of death and symbolism related to it. I am not sure if I would ever go to her extremes, but I can, in some ways, see where she is coming from. I do find her work very interesting and she does remind me of artists similar to the ones she seems to look up to aswell. It’s also very interesting for me because a little thing I know about Spain culturally is that while sexual themes are less taboo, violence and death sort of are taboo or treated in a similar way to how sexual themes are treated in America. It is very interesting to see an Spanish artist go this in depth into those themes, especially considering cultural context.