Cultural manifestations expressive of national difference within the borders of the ‘patria’, understood as ‘Una, grande y libre’, could not be tolerated. Aside from the – by no means minor – issue of Francoism’s added hostility towards cultural difference, the problems affecting onstage activity in Galicia during the long dictatorship were by and large similar to those faced by theatre practitioners in the rest of Spain.35 Subjecting theatre to institutionalised censorship, the regime eventually permitted the use of the language, mainly in folkloric performances and other constrained manifestations that were deemed innocuous to the integrity of
34 López Silva, ‘Ramón de Valenzuela…’, p.1282.
35 For an overall view of stage activity and the evolution of the theatre map in Spain during the
dictatorship period, see John London, “Theatre under Franco (1939-1975): censorship, playwriting and performance”, in Maria M. Delgado and David T. Gies (eds.), A History of Theatre in Spain (Cambridge: C.U.P., 2012), pp. 341-371.
74
State-promoted ideals. More daring initiatives soon arose from these initially limited opportunities, paving the way for the independent theatre of the 1960s, which constituted a necessary step in the development of a theatre structure in the Galician context.36
References to stage activity during the dictatorship from the vantage point of exile often feature allusions to silence, reinforcing the idea that little could be achieved in those years and that the future of the Galician stage rested upon the work of those in the Americas. Until the mid 1960s, performance activity under the dictatorial regime is scarce and strictly controlled; in Manuel F. Vieites words, ‘nuestro teatro vive bajo mínimos’.37
Nevertheless, we know of a number of groups devoted to amateur theatre practice, inserted in associations of a very diverse nature, sometimes with rather fleeting existences. Many disappeared leaving scarce documentary traces of a work that was often marginal, secondary and even clandestine, which makes the mapping of theatrical activity in Galicia during those years an arduous task.
A large part of performances in the post-war period were initially carried out by the coros, associations with an explicit focus on the popular musical tradition. Many of these associations established ‘cuadros dramáticos’, dedicated to the performance of drama, which also played a key role in early twentieth century rehabilitation of the Galician language.38 Their existence was tolerated and, to an extent, encouraged by the regime, insofar as the exaltation of heritage was one of the elements utilised in its discourse. 39 We owe the first performance of a Galician play
36 Vieites denominates the 1965-1999 period ‘Nuevo Teatro Gallego’ and divides it as follows: ‘El
teatro independiente (1965-1978): Fase de formación; El teatro profesional (1978/1984): Fase de desarrollo; El teatro institucional (1984-1995): Fase de regularización’. Manuel F. Vieites, La Nueva Dramaturgia Gallega. Estudio y antología (Madrid: Asociación de Directores de Escena de España, 1998), p. 53.
37 Vieites, La Nueva Dramaturgia…, p.44.
38 The activity of the coros in the pre-war period is discussed in Chapter One of this thesis.
39
Even the names of those groups are markedly ‘non-threatening’, loaded with references to the musical, the popular, the emotive and even the floral: ‘Cantigas da Terra’, ‘Coros, Frores e Silveiras’, ‘Cantigas e Aturuxos’, ‘Cantigas e Agarimos’.
75
after the war to two of these associations: ‘Coros Frores e Silveiras’ and ‘Cantigas e Aturuxos’ presented on 11 February 1943, the zarzuela Non chores, Sabeliña, written by José Trapero Pardo, with music by Gustavo Freire, in the Gran Teatro de Lugo. During the 1940s and 1950s, ruralist and popular pieces continue to dominate theatre production, mostly carried out by those same musical societies, with some incursions by other community groups.40 The plays that were staged often resorted to comical devices or sentimentalism to draw stereotypical and reductive representations of reality ‘sen incomodar nin cuestionar o estado de sitio que se forzaba baixo o xugo e as frechas fascistas’.41
The choral ensembles provided a means for young amateur practitioners to pursue dramaturgical paths that otherwise would have been blocked by the authorities. One of those associations, Cantigas e Agarimos, presented in 1958 a production of Jean Anouilh’s Antígona, under the direction of Rodolfo López Veiga. The choice stands out in a theatrical landscape dominated until then by Galician- language originals and folkloric activity, with a penchant towards rural, popular themes. Anouilh’s contemporary reworking of the classical Sophocles text resonated loudly in a context of dictatorship: not only did the plot conjure up visions of authoritarian imposition, but also the context of the original play – Nazi-occupied France. López Veiga belonged to the theatre group of the Colegio La Salle in Santiago, like Agustín Magán, who established Ditea in 1960, the ‘teatro de cámara’ group closely examined in Chapter Three. Veiga appears in Ramón de Valenzuela’s report for the PCE on activities in Galicia: ‘Joven profesor […] rodeado de muchos jóvenes galleguistas de todos los matices en materia de religión, pero siempre antifranquistas. Puede ser elemento importante en los movimientos universitarios
40 The Centro Cultural Deportivo de Santa Lucía (A Coruña) established a theatre group in January
1948, which was banned shortly afterwards. also in A Coruña, the Asociación Cultural Iberoamericana created a Teatro de Cámara in 1959.
41
Alfonso Becerra de Becerreá, ‘A dramaturxia nos tempos da ditadura’, Cento vinte e cinco…, ed. by Manuel F. Vieites, pp.111-130 (p.112).
76
que se avecinan’.42
The translation was by Xosé Manuel Beiras.43
In 1961, almost twenty years after it was first performed in Buenos Aires, Cantigas e Agarimos staged Castelao’s Os vellos non deben de namorarse for the first time on Galician soil. The historical stature of the author, perhaps the most emblematic figure of Galician nationalism, lends the production landmark significance and the premiere took place in the Praza da Quintana, a highly representative location in central Santiago. There were repeated performances, something unusual for amateur companies at the time, which gives an idea of the public interest generated around the event.
The Galician stage continued to feed predominantly on Galician-language originals, although the prevalence of the rural theme lessens as we advance through the 1960s. The 1959 production of Álvaro Cunqueiro’s O incerto señor don Hamlet,
príncipe de Dinamarca by the Teatro de Cámara of the Asociación Cultural
Iberoamericana in A Coruña represents a turn to literary texts by consecrated authors, not necessarily drama. Álvaro Cunqueiro (1911 -1981) had been one of the key cultivators of literature in Galician language and one of the few who had continued to be active under the constraints imposed by the dictatorial regime, namely a public switch to Spanish language. His reworking of Shakespeare’s tragedy was probably intended as a literary exercise rather than a performance text and yet it has been staged on numerous occasions since. The performance generated considerable public interest and came close to being suspended but Cunqueiro’s connections appeased the censor. The poet Avilés de Taramancos, also involved in the production, recalled the hostile reaction of the local Delegado de Educación Popular, Francisco Serrano Castilla to the script: ‘Voy a llevar a don Hamlet al
42
Xesús Alonso Montero, "Ramón de Valenzuela. Informe (clandestino) sobre Galicia: política y cultura en el verano de 1965 (Edición, prólogo y notas), in Carmen Mejía Ruiz (ed.), Dos vidas y un exilio. Ramón de Valenzuela y María Victoria Villaverde. Estudio y Antología. (Madrid: Complutense, 2011), pp. 117-142 (p. )
43 Beiras (b. 1936) was to become the leader of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego, the most visible
Galician nationalist political party during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite his future left-wing postulates, he is not amongst the activists listed by Valenzuela in his report for the PCE.
77
paredón’. Tensions were deflected thanks to the intercession of Manuel Fraga Iribarne, newly appointed government minister and acquaintance of Cunqueiro. Avilés refers Serrano Castilla’s change of heart and his words of praise towards the young thespians as he personally introduced the performance.44 Cunqueiro’s version of the Shakespearean tragedy anticipated one of the main lines of work consolidated throughout the following decade and broke the supremacy of costumbrismo and popular themes on the Galician stage. Although not a translation as such, Don
Hamlet was cited as a controversial foreign presence on the Galician stage during the
1970s debates on the issue of translation, which will be further discussed in the following chapter.
In 1965, the Asociación Cultural O Facho established its theatre group, marking the birth of independent theatre in Galicia. The initiative was led by Francisco Pillado and Manuel Lourenzo, both of whom have remained associated to Galician theatre until the present day.45 Pillado’s account of their first project offers an insight into the challenges faced by practitioners at the time, amongst which censorship and the issue of repertoire stand out:
Eu estaba convencido de que o teatro galego reducíase á existencia de dúas obras: Os vellos non deben de namorarse de Castelao e A fiestra
valdeira de Dieste, e da mesma crenza era Manuel Lourenzo [...] tiñamos
moito entusiasmo, pero o que non eramos era idiotas; e o que non se nos ocorría era ir pedir á censura representar Os vellos non deben de
namorarse de Castelao. Era imposible. Xa nin se nos ocorría. 46
Since they lacked the numbers to take on A fiestra valdeira, Lourenzo and Pillado opted for a dramatisation of poems by Luis Pimentel and Rosalía de Castro and a translated Carlos Muñiz text. Although the performance was refused the
44 Antón Avilés de Taramancos, ‘Don Hamlet no paredón’, in Obra viva (Santiago de Compostela:
Laiovento, 1992), pp.86-88.
45 Manuel Lourenzo continues to be involved in theatre activity, as actor, writer and director. In 1967,
he abandons O Facho to set up Teatro Circo. Francisco Pillado’s activities veered towards dissemination and education. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his work, amongst others, for his role as publisher of the Cadernos da Escola Dramática Galega. In 1996, he donated to the Universidade da Coruña his collections of books and theatre-related materials.
46
Xosé Luna Sanmartín, ‘Conversa con Francisco Pillado Mayor’, in A Pinguela. Teatro Escolar para ler e representar 36 (2005), 4-18 (7).
78
necessary permits, they canvassed the support of recognised personalities who could minimise the risk (or severity) of a potential police intervention with their presence. Amongst those in attendance, was ‘un señor maior’ who approached them after the show and discussion to ask why they had not chosen a Galician dramatic text, to which they replied: ‘mire, non facemos teatro galego porque non existe teatro galego’. The man in question was Leandro Carré Alvarellos, one of the most active figures in Galician theatre before the war:47
moi finamente, empézanos a explicar o teatro galego dende o século XIX ata os nosos días [...] É dicer, alí, dous mocetes estabamos negando a biografía, o traballo e os esforzos de homes como Leandro Carré [...] o que nos estiveron furtando, o que nos estiveron roubando esta cuadrilla de asasinos que nin sequera nos deixaban representar a Rosalía.48
Francisco Pillado’s reflection on the mutilation of the Galician theatre corpus is a poignant one and the lacuna in their knowledge demands consideration. In the 1960s, Pillado and Lourenzo were driven by their commitment to theatre practice in Galician language to set up their group in a hostile environment. The fact that, despite their vocation, they were so unaware of past practice and texts shows the success of the discrediting, marginalisation and repression that Franco’s government exercised on cultural production.49 The dramatisation of poetic texts from the Galician canon, a relatively frequent strategy during the 1960s, allowed for the utilisation of consolidated authors and their political or symbolic credentials.50 In contrast, translations of foreign plays remained a rarely adopted supplementation strategy during this period. The mistrust of the authorities towards external
47 Leandro Carré was director of the Escola Dramática Galega (1922-1926), founder of Editorial Lar
(1924) and member of the Real Academia Galega since 1945.
48
Luna Sanmartín, ‘Conversa… ’, p. 7.
49 Even though the two young practitioners misjudged the tradition, we know that Villar Ponte and his
contemporaries were already concerned with the lack of originals, as seen in their contributions to the press, documented on Chapter One.
50
The adaptation of poems and prose continued throughout that decade into the next, with dramatisations based on Celso Emilio Ferreiro’s poetry collection Longa noite de pedra by O Facho (1966) and Teatro Circo (1967) – also a Lourenzo initiative. Teatro Circo devised Terra en lume (1970), on texts by Rosalía de Castro. Histrión 70 staged Tempo de chorar (Arpezos de door e da saudade) in 1970, also based on Ferreiro’s poems and the Grupo Teatral Verbas e Cousas presented at the Mostra de Ribadavia Un ollo de vidro (1975), a play based on Castelao’s novella.
79
influences and the limited availability of foreign literary works are factors in the scarce onstage presence of translated drama. However, the few translations staged in the decades of the dictatorship were, if anything, the most potentially controversial because of their political connotations, which shows a certain boundary-pushing agenda on the part of theatre practitioners. Besides the above-discussed Antígona, based on Jean Anouilh’s original (Cantigas e Agarimos, 1958), we find plays by Bertolt Brecht and Max Frisch.51 While prestige influenced the choices of source texts, as did the social and political relevance of the plays, original creation in Galician language was regarded as the truly pressing necessity during the 1960s and part of the following decade. Although drama translation became increasingly common during the1970s, it remained the subject of heated debate during those years and, arguably, only the consolidation of professional and institutional theatre practice settled the controversy.52
One decisive initiative in the recent history of Galician theatre has contributed to reshaping dramaturgical activity: the creation of the prize for original drama
Concurso de Textos Teatrais Abrente in 1973, linked to the association of that name
in Ribadavia (Ourense), and the annual theatre festival it hosted, the Mostra de Teatro de Ribadavia. The award promoted original texts while the Mostra was a point of encounter for practitioners, not only to showcase their productions but also to engage in the necessary discussion of the way forward for Galician theatre. Abrente was the stepping stone towards professionalisation in the Galician theatre context. However, there was neither breakage with the previous period nor signs of a leap forward into the next. Many practitioners and authors who had carved their
51 Puntila and Bonhome e os incendiarios (both O Facho, 1966), after Biedermann und die
Brandstifter. The limited availability of originals and, to an extent, the inability to translate them – made mediated translations common practice amongst amateur and independent practitioners at the time. It is worth noting that there is a 1959-Spanish edition of Bertolt Brecht’s Herr Puntila (Buenos Aires: Losange), while Primer Acto published Biederman y los incendarios (a translation by Manuela González Haba) in 1965 (n.62, pp.25-45).
52
The debates on the role of translation during the 1970s are discussed in Chapter Three, in relation to the activity of Ditea, and the position of translation in the CDG repertoire is analysed in Chapter Four.
80
niche during the 1960s consolidated their influence in the hearth of Abrente. Much like the political scene, theatre practice was experiencing a slow – although not always smooth – transition.
The developments in stage practice in Galician language that occurred during the 1960s are sometimes overshadowed by the significance of Abrente and the changes that followed: the shift in pace during the 1970s and, with the onset of democracy, the emergence of institutional theatre. The choices of the late 1950s and 1960s anticipate a substantial part of the repertoire of the Centro Dramático Galego, the Galician institutionally sponsored company, which became a powerful agent in the establishment of the canon of drama in Galician language: plays such as Os
vellos non deben de namorarse (2000) or Cunqueiro’s O incerto señor don Hamlet, príncipe de Dinamarca (1991) and Si o vello Sinbad volvese ás illas (1999), Rafael
Dieste’s A fiestra valdeira (1994), and key representatives of world drama such as Brecht and Synge.53 The existence of such intersections responds to a multiplicity of factors that go beyond the internal operations within the system but, as can be seen, the list is redolent of names and plays which had already been present during the ‘longa noite’ of the Franco regime. This is indicative of the extent to which it is necessary to focus on evidence of continuity rather than rupture when it comes to the study of theatre practice. Furthermore, the observation of these common threads should prompt a reflection on the impact that the adverse circumstances had on the canonisation of certain authors and plays.