Sub Titles Over is an award-winning one-woman-show exploring censorship and manipulation through translation and subtitles. It will be showcased as part of the Festival of Spanish Theatre in London on Saturday 1st of November 2025, 3pm, at St. John’s Hoxton, London. We are thrilled to have this conversation of its creator, Marina.
What inspired you to use the mechanics of translation and subtitles as a theatrical lens to explore censorship and democracy?
I find that inspiration for many of my plays initially comes from a deep sense of frustration and anger. For this particular show, that frustration came from how the Spanish government and certain media channels reported on the events surrounding the Catalan referendum for independence, events which I had seen with my own eyes. After seeing the extreme violence and brutality the Spanish police used on our streets, I was absolutely appalled to then hear our president lying about what had happened in Catalonia on the evening news. In the coming days, it became apparent that Spanish channels had the upper hand in shaping the narrative around the event, and that Catalan voices were being completely drowned out due to both a language barrier as well as a lack of access to platforms with wider Spanish audiences.
Some years ago I came across an art piece at a gallery in London that featured a French voiceover with English subtitles that were far from accurate in communicating any kind of nuance. I remember it sparking a deep frustration in me, because the artist’s message was being betrayed by a lacking translation. And then it clicked. That was the same frustration I had felt in 2017. And this is how ‘Sub Titles Over’ was born.
Performing in Catalan with English captions, how do you play with the tension between what is spoken and what is read—and what power lies in that gap?
We definitely make the most of the comedy that lies within that gap. At the start of the show, as we establish the language of the play, we insert jokes that are between the audience and the captions, at the expense of the character on stage, so they establish this trusting relationship between them. And, if you are planning on coming to see the show, please stop reading and go to the next question because I’m about to spoil the whole point of the play. Once that trust is established, the realisation that comes later on about the captions lying to the audience, hits even harder. And it’s in this betrayal that the non Catalan speaking audiences experience, that the show makes its point.
The piece is rooted in the Catalan referendum of 2017—how has distance in time, and the current political climate, shifted your relationship to telling this story?
Whilst I was such an active campaigner for Catalan independence back then, now I couldn’t care less about others’ opinions on it. What I’m concerned about is people’s thoughts on the democratic process itself and people’s right to self-determination, regardless of whether they’d vote for or against Catalonia’s independence. I’ve learnt that, and this is really simplifying a very nuanced subject, but it’s never about which side of the political spectrum you’re on. It’s about whether you are for or against democracy and civil & human rights that should be the concern. And this is why I think the show is so relevant right now.
As both writer and performer, how do you balance the deeply personal with the universally political in a one-woman show?
I am of the opinion that the more personal a piece is, the better you are to tackle a very universal topic in an effective and nuanced way. A way that connects with audiences who have never lived through that particular experience.
What I’ve wanted to do with this play, was not to propagandise about my own stance on a political debate, but to make people think beyond that binary, and to contemplate their position regarding freedom of speech, democracy and censorship.
Sub Titles Over challenges audiences to question narrative control—what responsibility do you think artists have in an age of misinformation and manipulated truths?
I don’t think we as artists should feel responsible for helping people discover ‘the truth’. I think our responsibility is to help train audiences’ critical thinking, as well as fostering spaces for deep and sustained thinking in the era of short-form content.
I believe that theatre’s magic lies within its ‘live’ aspect, which is great at creating spaces and events where people can develop analytical skills and have conversations where they have to listen to each other instead of schooling ragebait bots in a comment section.
You perform in multiple languages—what freedoms and limitations do you find in expressing political ideas across linguistic borders?
Oh my. I could write a six-page essay on this. To cut it nice and short, in this particular show, I was interested in people being more interested in the linguistic premise of the show, rather than my particular political opinion on the topic. And I must say, I am relying heavily on this play through language and captioning to help me get through the barriers some people might have put up around this very controversial issue.
It’s really fun and interesting to see how people can connect with this story despite the language barrier we have imposed on them, and how experiencing this barrier collectively can end up being a bridge between two historically opposing sides to the conversation, sparking a very needed debate.