Contención mecánica

The autumn stage programme in the Community of Madrid has, together with our Festival, another unmissable event that precedes it in October: the Muestra de Creación Escénica SURGE MADRID. This will be its tenth year. As has been the case since 2020, both events are once again collaborating to give space and greater visibility to emerging works put together by new companies or creators. With the aim of promoting the Salas’ social function in terms of generating opportunities in Madrid, SURGE MADRID worked on 6 pieces at last year’s Festival. Each was performed in front of a live audience once. The Salas make a careful selection of the works they would like to host and include in the 41st Festival de Otoño. Their artistic value is considered, and a selection is made from the 43 projects presented. Two were chosen from the 43: Silbatrriz Pons’s Esquizofonía and Contención mecánicafrom the theatre company Teatro de los Invisibles.

Contención Mecánica is a live action documentary and arts project that was created to denounce psychiatric violence, focusing on a practice that is still common in psychiatric units and emergency services in Spain: strapping people to beds. The title in Spanish reflects the very contents of the performance as the Spanish term for restraining psychiatric patients in such a way is “contención mecánica”. They can be tied to the bed at their waist and by their wrists for hours and even days depending on the healthcare personnel's decision. Once it resulted in the patient’s death. The restriction of liberty is usually opaque and there are no control mechanisms in place for when it can be applied. According to the company's own investigations, it is not possible to access records explaining who is tied up, by whom, why, for how long, or how. The documents are seemingly invisible. In the case of serious or fatal consequences, these cases often go unpunished and unpublicised; their ghosts never to be seen.

The work combines testimonial and performative aspects to serve as a loudspeaker for a collective that is invisible. Victims of mental illness are once again being silenced. Those people with psychiatric diagnoses who have suffered some kind of violation of rights during their medical admissions are shoved into the closet where they are not taken notice of. Why does this practice still exist? Are patients really listened to or are they systematically overruled by their diagnosis? Zaida Alonso explains: “It is a truth we bring to the stage inspired by the experiences gathered and the contributions of the people involved, some of whom take the stage with us. An uncomfortable truth to share is put on display through their testimony or through their voice or image, and in the case of the poet, performer, and 'crazy' activist Rafael Carvajal, in body and soul, becoming one of the fundamental pillars of this work".

Carvajal has been a direct victim of restraints in various psychiatric units. Just like him, Marta Plaza, the suffering she endured from the inhumane practice led to panic attacks. She has collaborated on the performance piece to further her activist work for the #0contenciones campaign, which she created to stop the dehumanising practice of constraints. The stage becomes a free space to reflect on this dehumanising practice and to ask ourselves what the underlying problem is. Is it money? Is it science? Do we lack conscience? The theatre more than ever has become a space to find solutions to unjust and unnecessary suffering.