Although the aggressor is no longer present, the abuse remains.
Centuries after Spain's colonial rule over the Philippines formally ended, a theatrical work premiering in Madrid asks what it means for an aggressor to depart while the damage endures. Playwright Lucía Miranda's 'Las últimas' uses the unlikely vessel of karaoke to draw audiences into a shared, embodied confrontation with empire's long aftermath. It is a reminder that history does not conclude with the signing of treaties — it persists in institutions, in language, in the way a people understand themselves.
- Spain's National Drama Center has staged a work that implicates its own nation in centuries of unresolved harm — an act of cultural self-examination rare in any country's public institutions.
- The production's central provocation — that abuse outlasts the abuser — cuts against the comfortable assumption that formal independence closes the colonial wound.
- By casting the audience as participants through karaoke, Miranda refuses the safety of spectatorship, pulling people into the discomfort of colonial history rather than letting them observe it from a distance.
- The work arrives amid a broader wave of decolonization efforts in art and public discourse, signaling that Spain and Europe may be entering a more honest reckoning with imperial legacies.
- For Filipinos, the resonance is intimate: Spanish colonialism is not an abstraction but a living presence in religion, law, language, and identity that the country continues to negotiate.
In May, Spain's National Drama Center premiered 'Las últimas' — The Last Ones — a work by playwright Lucía Miranda that asks something unusual of a theater audience: to reckon, collectively, with what one country did to another, and what has never quite healed.
The vehicle Miranda chose is karaoke. Audiences sing, speak, and perform alongside the work — a format that is playful and sometimes awkward, but deliberately so. The collapse of distance between performer and audience mirrors the production's deeper argument: that colonialism is not a spectator sport, not something to be observed from a safe remove. It must be inhabited, spoken aloud, made present in shared space.
Spain ruled the Philippines for more than three centuries, reshaping its language, religion, governance, and identity from the ground up. When Spain withdrew in 1898, the colonial machinery did not disappear — it had become the country's infrastructure. The damage had calcified into institutions that persist to this day.
The production's sharpest insight is captured in a single line from its promotional materials: 'Although the aggressor is no longer present, the abuse remains.' Miranda frames the work as a fiesta designed to decolonize history — an unusual framing, but a purposeful one. Decolonization, she seems to argue, cannot happen in academic isolation. It requires bodies, voices, and public presence.
'Las últimas' premiered alongside Miranda's companion piece 'Una buena vida,' suggesting a sustained artistic inquiry into how societies carry their histories. Together, they join a growing cultural movement refusing to let historical injustice remain safely in the past — a signal that something may be shifting in how Spain, and perhaps Europe more broadly, is willing to look at itself.
In May, Spain's National Drama Center premiered a theatrical work that does something most audiences don't expect from a stage: it asks a country to reckon with what it did to another country, centuries ago, and what lingers still.
The piece is called "Las últimas"—The Last Ones—and it's the creation of playwright Lucía Miranda. On its surface, it uses an unusual device: karaoke. Audiences participate in singing, in speaking, in the act of performance itself. But the real subject is not entertainment. It's the relationship between Spain and the Philippines, a connection forged through colonization and never quite resolved, even now.
Miranda's work emerges from a specific historical wound. Spain ruled the Philippines for more than three centuries, from the 1500s until 1898. That occupation shaped everything—language, religion, governance, identity. When Spain finally withdrew, the Philippines did not simply return to what it had been. The colonial machinery had become part of the country's infrastructure. The damage had calcified into institutions.
What makes "Las últimas" distinct is that it doesn't treat this history as settled. The production's central insight, reflected in its promotional materials, cuts to something many prefer to leave unspoken: "Although the aggressor is no longer present, the abuse remains." This is not a statement about Spain in 2026. It's a statement about the Philippines in 2026. It's about how colonialism doesn't end when the colonizer leaves. It persists in law, in language, in the way a society thinks about itself.
Miranda frames the work as a kind of party—a fiesta designed to decolonize history. That's an unusual framing for something so serious. But there's logic in it. Decolonization isn't a solemn academic exercise. It's a cultural reckoning that has to happen in public, in shared space, with voices and bodies and presence. Theater, by its nature, is that kind of space. It requires people to show up and participate. It refuses the distance of a book or a film.
The karaoke format is particularly pointed. Karaoke is participatory. It's also often playful, sometimes awkward, sometimes revelatory. It's a form that breaks down the barrier between performer and audience. In the context of examining Spain-Philippines relations, that collapse of hierarchy becomes meaningful. The audience isn't watching a story about colonialism from a safe distance. They're inside it, singing it, speaking it, making it present.
The work premiered alongside another Miranda piece, "Una buena vida" (A Good Life), suggesting a broader artistic inquiry into how societies live with their histories. But "Las últimas" is the one that directly addresses the unfinished business of empire. It's part of a growing wave of cultural decolonization efforts—artistic and public conversations that refuse to let historical injustice remain historical. These efforts signal something shifting in how Spain, and perhaps Europe more broadly, is willing to examine its own past.
For the Philippines, the resonance is different. The country has long grappled with the inheritance of Spanish colonialism—in its Catholic majority, in its legal codes, in the very names of its cities and institutions. What Miranda's work offers is not answers but a space to name what has been inherited and what still needs to be reckoned with. The stage becomes a place where that reckoning can happen, not in isolation, but together.
Citações Notáveis
Although the aggressor is no longer present, the abuse remains— Promotional framing of 'Las últimas'
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why use karaoke specifically? Why not a more traditional theatrical form?
Because karaoke breaks the wall between watcher and watched. When you're singing someone else's words, you're inhabiting them. You can't stay neutral. That's what decolonization requires—not observation, but participation.
But doesn't making it playful risk trivializing the subject?
The opposite, actually. Colonialism wasn't serious and solemn—it was brutal and casual at once. A fiesta format captures that contradiction. It's also how people actually process difficult histories together. Not in lecture halls. In shared, sometimes awkward, sometimes joyful spaces.
The quote says the abuse remains even though the aggressor is gone. What does that mean concretely for Filipinos today?
It means the Philippines still operates under legal systems Spain installed. It means Catholic institutions shape policy. It means Filipinos speak Spanish surnames and Spanish-derived words without always knowing why. The colonizer left, but the colonization stayed.
Is this work aimed at Spanish audiences or Filipino audiences?
Both, but differently. For Spain, it's a mirror—a chance to see what it left behind and what it still hasn't acknowledged. For the Philippines, it's recognition. Someone on a major stage is saying: this wound is real, and it's still open.
What does decolonization through theater actually accomplish?
It makes the invisible visible. It creates a moment where a society can name something together. That's not nothing. It's where change begins.