1st Edition
Performing the Transition to Democracy Theater and Performance in 1970s Spain
This book examines troupes, plays, festivals, performative practices, and audiences active during the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the beginning of the transition to democracy.
This period, spanning 1968 to 1982, is considered the historical moment that most directly shaped contemporary Spanish politics and society. The dominant narrative of the Transition has long portrayed it as a normalized, non-confrontational, and consensual process steered by political elites. But the world of Spanish theater tells a very different story—one in which ordinary Spaniards played a vital role in the transition to democracy. The chapters of this book draw on censorship files, photographs, audiovisual and textual material, and the author’s own interviews with more than a dozen audience and troupe members. Using these sources, David Rodriguez-Solas examines the notable experimentation during this period with theatrical performance, music and ritual, the establishment of performing spaces and festivals, the development of touring networks as a way to evade censorship, and the creation of networks of support that opposed diverse forms of violence and repression.
This study will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in theater and the cultural and political history of Spain in the 1960s and 1970s.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Resignifying the Past and the Performance Tradition
Chapter 2. Laying the Groundwork for the Theater of the Future
Chapter 3. European Tours of Independent Theater in the 1970s
Chapter 4. The Fight for Democracy Takes to the Streets
Conclusion
Work Cited
Index
Biography
David Rodríguez-Solás is Associate Professor of Spanish literary and theater studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.