Staging History in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Drama

Staging History in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Drama By Andreea Iulia Sprinceana A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Dru Dougherty, Chair Professor Michael Iarocci Professor Shannon Jackson Spring 2014 Copyright Andreea Iulia Sprinceana, 2014 All rights reserved. Abstract Staging History in Modern and Contemporary Spanish Drama by Andreea Iulia Sprinceana Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Dru Dougherty, Chair This dissertation explores the manifestations, uses and appropriations of history in key Spanish plays from the 1950s to the present. The relationship between the stage and history casts new light on Spain’s most critical phases in recent history. The authors studied were and are conscious of making history under the dictatorship, during the Transition and at the dawn of the 21st century. As instruments of civic action, their plays perform that awareness and invite spectators to recognize themselves as players in the process. The dissertation opens with a comparative analysis of plays written by Antonio Buero Vallejo and Alfonso Sastre between the 1950s and the Transition (1977). While scholars have tended to contrast these two playwrights focusing on their responses to censorship, I propose that Buero and Sastre gravitated towards a poetics of forgiveness through the model of the failed tragic hero. The following chapter explores plays written by José Sanchis Sinisterra during the Transition and the outset of the new democracy (1977-1994), that problematize the tension between the new political order and the old, imperial rhetoric of the Franco regime. Turning to Juan Mayorga in Chapter 3, I consider how his dramas transmit a bitter image of humanity’s decadence and loss of moral sensitivity. Largely influenced by a European perspective, Mayorga deploys cartoonish characters in real historical circumstances in order to cast a detached comic eye on the role of the bourgeoisie in the mapping of history during the past two centuries. My final chapter analyzes the topic of religion within the new Spanish democracy in three comic plays by Fermín Cabal, Concha Romero and Carmen Resino. This chapter proposes that the powerful role of religion has not waned since Franco’s death and continues to shape Spanish culture, despite the nation’s reconfiguration of its Catholic views. These authors dramatize the tensions between modern secularization and traditional Catholic faith, turning to comedy and satire to explore the complex presence of religion in the lives of Spaniards. 1 To my mother i Acknowledgements Over the course of the years I have received support, advice and encouragement from a number of individuals. Professor Dru Dougherty has been a mentor, colleague and friend. His guidance has made this a thoughtful and rewarding journey. I would also like to thank the rest of my dissertation committee of Michael Iarocci and Shannon Jackson for their support as I moved from an idea to a completed study. In addition, professor Ivonne del Valle provided invaluable research advice. On the Spanish side, my gratitude extends to longtime professor and friend Julio Checa, who helped me establish important contacts and listened to me talk about my research. Juan Mayorga, playwright and friend whose time and generosity reflect in this work. And finally, to those individuals at the Biblioteca Nacional and the Biblioteca Pública Central of Madrid whose assistance and help contributed to the start of this project. ii Table of Contents Introduction v 1. From Civil War to Transition: Antonio Buero Vallejo and Alfonso Sastre Disrupting Linear History, Questioning Destiny and Honoring Human Failure 1 1.1. History – A Work in Progress: “(M.S.V.) o La sangre y la ceniza” (1965) by Alfonso Sastre and “La detonación” (1977) by Antonio Buero Vallejo 9 1.2. More than a Matter of Hats: “Un soñador para un pueblo” (1958) by Antonio Buero Vallejo and “Guillermo Tell tiene los ojos tristes” (1955) by Alfonso Sastre 29 1.3. Seeing History through the Eyes of the Artist: Antonio Buero Vallejo’s Las Meninas (1960) 41 2. Transition and the Limits of History: José Sanchis Sinisterra 51 2.1. A Way Out from History through Performance: “¡Ay, Carmela!” (1986) 58 2.2. Fragments of History, Before and After: “Naufragios de Álvar Núñez o La herida del otro” (1992) 72 2.3. History as Parable and Continuous Transition: “El cerco de Leningrado” (1994) 87 3. The History Puzzle of Democracy: Juan Mayorga 101 3.1. Kaleidoscopic History: “Himmelweg (Camino del cielo)” (2003) 109 3.2. “La tortuga de Darwin” (2008) or the Absurd Game of History 125 4. New Democracy and Old Traditions: Old Souls in New Bodies Religion in Three Plays by Fermín Cabal, Concha Romero and Carmen Resino 141 4.1. The Clergy and the Nation in Fermín Cabal’s “Vade retro”(1982): A Crisis of Identity 147 4.2. Concha Romero’s “Un olor a ámbar” (1983) and the Derision of Historical Sanctification 164 4.3. Anticlerical Satire in “Bajo sospecha” (1995) by Carmen Resino 171 iii Conclusion: The Collective Necessity of History 182 Bibliography 188 iv Introduction In the very term “historical drama”…the first word qualifies the fictiveness of the second, and the second questions the reality of the first. - Herbert Lindenberger, Historical Drama. The Relation of Literature and Reality Truth of passions, verisimilitude of feelings in imagined circumstances – that is what our mind demands of the dramatic writer. - Alexander Pushkin1 The notion of history and the “historical” Historical plays provide a unique opportunity to engage with and examine the relations between fiction, imagination and the outside world. At first, “history” and “drama” (“play”) may seem to be two antagonistic dimensions. While historicism is concerned with documenting the exact and accurate domain of the past, the dramatic is preoccupied with a fictional representation of past events. As the first quote above suggests, Herbert Lindenberger finds a sharp opposition between history and drama, a collision of two worlds: the real and the imaginary. German philosopher and dramatist G.E. Lessing attenuates this opposition, by asking, “How far may the poet stray from historical truth? In all that does not concern the characters, as far as he likes. He must hold only the characters sacred and may be allowed to add only what will strengthen them, show them in their best light…”2 Thus, in the domain of historical drama, it would seem that the dramatic wins, as the poet/dramatist must “hold characters more sacred than facts.”3 In “Acerca del drama histórico,” Antonio Buero Vallejo echoes the same fact/fiction dialectic inherent to historical drama, specifying that theater performs an operation that historians don’t allow: Por ser teatro y no historia, es además el teatro histórico labor estética y social de creación e invención, que debe […] ir por delante de la historia más o menos establecida, abrir nuevas vías de comprensión de la misma e inducir interpretaciones históricas más exactas. Que, para lograrlo, el autor no tiene por qué ceñirse a total fidelidad cronológica, espacial o biográfica respecto de los hechos 1 Quot. in Lukács, The Historical Novel, p. 166. 2 Ibid., p. 162. 3 Ibid. v comprobados […]. Un drama histórico es una obra de invención, y el rigor interpretativo a que aspira atañe a los significados básicos, no a los pormenores.”4 [Being drama and not history, historical drama is an esthetic and social work of creation and invention, which must … go beyond more or less established history, open new ways of understanding and induce more exact historical interpretations. In order to do this, the author does not have to cling to a totally chronological, spatial or biographical fidelity regarding confirmed facts… A historical drama is a work of invention, and the interpretative rigor to which it aspires applies to basic meanings, not to details.] Simply put, the author does not have to “submit himself to a total chronological, spatial or biographical fidelity,” which goes against the tenets of historiography. And here Aristotle’s differentiation between historian and poet in his Poetics adds that the first “relates what has happened, the other what may happen.”5 In general, literature seeks to imitate, attack or transcend the external or real world. Historical writings, however, as the above quotes demonstrate, set the grounds for a deeper engagement with reality and the exterior world than other traditional forms of fiction.6 The particularity of (historical) drama – as opposed to historical novel – consists in taking this “engagement” from the fictitious level to the real level, to the audience seeing the live play. As Herbert Lindenberger noted, the difference between historical narrative and historical drama is precisely the sense of closeness that a play transmits to its audience: “Narrative works to create a distance, both temporal and physical, between us and the personages it depicts, while drama seeks an immediacy of effect which succeeds in giving its personages a direct power over us” (70). The scope of this project is to illuminate the various understandings of history by dramatists and audiences, showing the close connection between the notions of drama and history (or the “historical”) in works that exhibit these qualities, and to reflect on how the audiences at large experience these notions. The plays addressed in this project can be considered instruments of civic action that address the dictatorship, Transition, and the onset of democracy within some sort of historical trajectory. The plays are about history but they also aim to make history (i.e., to influence the course of Spain’s trajectory from 1936 onward in the Ortegian sense).

Load more