Innovation in stage design and production values in performances of the Spanish classics during the Second Spanish Republic.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the first modernized productions of the Spanish classics, which took place in Spain during the theatre seasons of 1930--1935. Spanish Golden Age drama was used as a source for innovations and an opportune place where new methodologies could be applied to achieve advances in contemporary staging. Although political hostilities and economic crisis led up to the Spanish Civil War, which put an end to all experimentation, these versions of the classics were nonetheless responsible for what may be considered the birth of the modern Spanish <italic>mise en scene</italic>. This dissertation is based on intensive research in archives in order to document a detailed reconstruction of the style of these performances and identify aesthetic, social and political implications. I also discuss how these advances were then often applied to the staging of contemporary avant-garde works. Margarita Xirgu's company with its stage director, Rivas Cherif, was the only commercial company committed to carrying through the renovation of the Spanish theatrical scene; this they did from the stage of the Teatro Espafiol in Madrid. They relied on the most progressive stage designers of the time---Burmann, Fontanals, Miguel Xirgu---who introduced three-dimensional scenery and permanent sets based on European theories of stylization, visualization and theatricality, and applied them to Seneca, Calderon, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina's works. This new scenography, as well as the use of complete versions of the texts, was a major step in the break with the obsolete <italic> refundicion</italic> (adaptation) and theatrical realism. The advent of the Second Republic (1931--1936) favored Xirgu and Cherifs artistic intentions, which coincided with the modernization, europeanization and democratization policies of the liberal republican government. Both needed to address the people via education and political socialization in order to succeed in their respective programs. An endeavor to share culture with the masses and the lack of an adequate theatrical infrastructure gave rise to stagings of the classics in open-air spaces. I draw upon Hans Robert Jauss's reception theory to elucidate this interrelation between theatre and politics, the dichotomy tradition-modernity and the success that these modernized versions of the classics achieved.