1984: Núm.: 24

Federico García Lorca: dramaturg o director?

1984-01-01T00:00:00Z

Federico García Lorca: dramaturg o director? Cámara, Isabel

In his book Federico y su mundo, Francisco García Lorca contends that the stage in his brother's plays “ ... opens up not only towards the spectator but towards an afterlife surrounding the stage”. Relying on her clase study of La casa de Bernarda Alba, Isabel Cámara seeks to show that this hypothesis is accurate and easily proven. In this particular tragedy, Lorca exchanges the stage direction Enter/ Exit in such a way that “Exit” acquires a double meaning: the one that conventionally corresponds to it and also its opposite. Concerning Poncia, Bernarda and Adela “Exit” not only signifies to disappear from the public's sight, but it also announces the “Exit” from backstage to the public stage. The confusion of the stage directions is in direct relation to the tragic tension of the drama, so that the confusion raises two phenomena; the union of the two dramatic spaces, stage and backstage, and the intense presence of the playwright/”director” in the climactic moment of the tragedy. The true protagonist turns out to be the stage and the dramatic space off-stage ar “outside”. At the end of the tragedy, the true protagonist turns out to be the stage and the decor of the initial scene through two of the main characters. It should be recalled that when the curtain rises, the stage is empty and silent. After Adela commits suicide, an event which takes place backstage, Poncia commands to Bernarda, “Don't Enter!”, and the final word of the drama, uttered by Bernarda, is “Silence!”. This inevitably recalls the space and silence which initiate the play.

Cámara maintains that La casa de Bernarda Alba is unique among the plays of Lorca because the author has deliberately exchanged the signs of the stage directions, with the intention of offering the public a “mise en crise” of the conventional psychic and physical spaces on stage.

L’escenografia de Fabià Puigserver

1984-01-01T00:00:00Z

L’escenografia de Fabià Puigserver Abellan, Joan

The Catalan scenographer and theatrical director Fabià Puigserver has created more than a hundred scenographic and wardrobe projects, mainly for shows produced in Catalonia but also for ones in Madrid and beyond the Spanish border. Internationally he is probably best-known for his contribution to Víctor García's staging of Yerma by García Lorca. Fabià Puigserver stands in the first rank among those who have dedicated themselves over the past twenty years to the revival of the Catalan theatre. From the last years of the Agrupació Dramàtica de Barcelona (ADB) to the peak years of the Escola d'Art Dramàtic Adrià Gual (EADAG) at the present Teatre Lliure in Barcelona which he co-founded, he has collaborated in bringing up to date many dramatic concepts that go beyond the limits of mere stage decoration. This article penetrates into his prolific work through analysis of his popularity and achievements and measures the conclusions of critics against the author's own opinions of the material studied. This double review of all of Fabià Puigserver's scenographic work also constitutes an absorbing general reflection on the technique and theory of space, wardrobe and stage materials and contributes to the study of a fundamental piece within the evolution of the contemporary Catalan stage.

Dansa i emancipació: el teatre de dansa de Wuppertal

1984-01-01T00:00:00Z

Dansa i emancipació: el teatre de dansa de Wuppertal Servos, Norbert

When Pina Bausch took over the direction of the Wuppertal Dance Theatre in the 1973-1974 season, German ballet broke off in a new direction. Her work grew steadily more distanced from the dance concepts of classical ballet and modern dance; she created a mixed genre, made up of genuine theatre and dance forms used in a different way and dubbed “Dance Theatre”. She is clearly a new didactic artist rooted in Brecht. The device “Experience Theatre” underlines the way in which the Wuppertal Dance Theatre should be taken and defines the emancipating signification that Pina Bausch gives to all the artistic genre: the emancipation of dance from its own forms. In this article Norbert Servos introduces and studies Pina Bausch's work in three chapters (The “Experience Theatre”; The forms of the “new” Dance Theatre, and The Language and History of the Body) and relates them to the theories of Ernest Bloch and Norbert Elias.

El Principal de València i les representacions teatrals en valencià durant el segle XIX

1984-01-01T00:00:00Z

El Principal de València i les representacions teatrals en valencià durant el segle XIX Sirera, Josep Lluís

The Principal Theatre was inaugurated in 1832 and soon became a meeting-place of the new Valencian bourgeoisie. Around it, other establishments appeared which opened their doors to a less select public: among others were the Princess, the Ruzafa and the Apollo. Despite government measures that aimed at preventing the development of a theatre in any language other than Spanish, the Valencian bourgeoisie did not renounce performances in its own language. At any rate, until the eighteen-fifties, plays in Valencian held a minor position in the Principal's programmes and were limited to comic pieces, though some of these must be considered full-length and not just short farces, as has sometimes been maintained. R. Ma. Liern was tirelessly active as the most important author of this initial period. The problem, however, is to know why the Valencian bourgeoisie did not develop a “normal” drama in its own language during the sixties, in a way parallel to what the Catalan bourgeoisie was doing in the Principality. With the appearance of Eduard Escolante came the local-manners farce, constructed according to strict archetypes and linguistic patterns. The lack of detailed studies on the different stages of this process, which belongs to the first two thirds of the nineteenth century, makes it hard for one to reach definitive conclusions.