There are several documents connected to this work by the Escola de Teatro: a press article on the group, two reviews of the performance, a personal letter to Ramón de Valenzuela and a hand programme.80 In this section, I will consider how these extratextual and paratextual materials provide an insight into the inception of the Escola de Teatro Lucense and its objectives, the approach to translation and the interpretation of Synge’s text.
The establishment of the ensemble is linked unambiguously to cultural action in the frame of the Galician associations, as we can see from the emphatic call for support in one of the reviews:
É necesario, absolutamente necesario, que os nosos asociados, as suas familias, e os seus amigos estimulen coa sua presencia estas manifestaciós de arte e cultura, que a nosa istitución ven fomentando, prá esbeltización espiritoal das suas xentes, e pra xerarquizar a cultura de Galicia, no ámbito da mellor cultura universal.81
In the Arealonga article, the Escola is described as a necessary and unprecedented initiative, without mention of the Teatro Popular Gallego of scarcely
80
Arealonga, ‘La Escuela…’; R.S.P., ‘O casamento do Latoneiro’ (Buenos Aires, November 1960); ‘Teatro Gallego en el Centro Lucense’. Unknown source (30 November 1960); Moisés de Presa. Letter to Ramón de Valenzuela (Buenos Aires, 4 December 1960); Escola de Teatro Lucense. Hand programme: O casamento do latoneiro (Buenos Aires, 19 November 1960). These documents are included in Mejía (ed.), pp. 271-274; and cited in Pazó, A función…, p. 46. Copies of the hand programme (Fig. 2, p. 91) and the R.S.P. review, reproduced in Appendix A, were facilitated to the author by Pazó, for which I am indebted to her.
81 R.S.P., ‘O Casamento do Latoneiro’ (November 1960). In all likelihood, the initials correspond to
Ramón Suárez Picallo (1894-1964), founding member of the Partido Galeguista and prominent figure of the Galician exile, who addressed the audience before the performance, as indicated in the article.
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two years earlier: ‘sin embargo, no había surgido hasta ahora, una iniciativa similar en otra manifestación artística de gran importancia: el teatro’.82
The omission of any reference to Blanco Amor’s project suggests a wish to avoid an association with that frustrated initiative. However, another article, ‘Teatro Gallego en el Centro Lucense’ combines praise of current activities (‘de un tiempo a esta parte’) with criticism of past attitudes, perhaps a veiled reference to the failed Teatro Popular Gallego:
Alguna vez hemos notado la ausencia de sensibilidad y emoción, entre sus directivos, por las cosas nuestras – ‘nosas’ –; muy especialmente por la preterición de nuestro idioma gallego [...] Nos hemos callado [...] seguros de que lo racial, lo telúrico, se iba a imponer; y así fue, y así es. 83
The work of the Escola is presented as a necessity for the community, an essential step for the recognition of Galician culture beyond its boundaries and a vehicle for the expression of its differential identity. The hand programme refers explicitly to this play as a conscious choice to open the trajectory of the Escola de Teatro Lucense, omitting to mention earlier work by the Spanish-language cast or the accessibility of the text. The short text on the programme takes us through the gap in cultural production that the Escola de Teatro came to fill, in emotionally charged language (‘con agarimo e con fé’). It also provides a rationale for choosing Synge’s The Tinker’s Wedding. Firstly, the prestige of the author (‘o grande dramaturgo irlandés’, ‘Synge está dentro da primeira liña do teatro universal’), which connects with the aim to position cultural production in Galician language on a par with that in other languages, as expressed by R.S.P.84 Synge’s dramaturgical production is described as ‘absolutamente popular, como arrincada da dór e do gozo, no senso e na fala’, which fits in with the identity building agenda of the institution, based on the maintenance of popular elements.
82 Arealonga, ‘La Escuela…’., in Dos vidas…, ed. by Carmen Mejía, p. 273. 83
‘Teatro gallego en el centro lucense’, Dos vidas…, ed. by Carmen Mejía, p. 274.
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Fig. 2 – O casamento do latoneiro. Hand programme.
The closing paragraph emphasises the proximity between Ireland and Galicia, presenting the ease of translation as further proof of common origin: ‘Na versión galega non houbo mais que cambear as verbas. O demais xa estaba feito. As obras de Synge son unha demostración mais da comunidade de orixen dos irlandeses e dos galegos’. Leaving aside the irony of this statement, given that the translation was in fact done from the Spanish version, this reference to the kinship between Ireland and Galicia is just one of several aspects that link the production of Synge to the lines anticipated in earlier incorporations of Irish drama to the Galician system. López Silva explains the choice as a continuation of pre-war values, a view not shared by Mejía, who interprets the selection as a prolongation of the popular theatre
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experience anticipated by Eduardo Blanco Amor. Whereas these views are not exclusive, the extratextual information points rather definitely, if not to a conscious continuation, at least to a prolongation of the early twentieth century approach. Moreover, the explicit mention of Antón Villar Ponte in Ramón Suárez Picallo’s opening address on the night of the premiere connects the play to the former’s perspective on the virtues of supplementing the dramatic corpus through translation, while also drawing attention to the popular character of the play and the prestige of its author:
Denantes de iniciar a representación, Ramón Suárez Picallo [...] Lembrou, que fai corenta e cinco anos, o gran xornalista i escritor lucense, de Viveiro, Antón Villar Ponte, asinalou o deficit que nas letras de Galicia tiña o teatro; e suxeriu a necesidade de que, pra suplilo, debíanse de facer traduciós de obras maestras do Teatro Universal en idioma galego.85
Equally, the review that appeared in Galicia – the periodical of the Federación de Sociedades Gallegas – reiterates the association with the Irmandades period by linking Synge to Plácido R. Castro:
en el teatro del Centro Lucense, se está representando una obra notable, en idioma gallego, nada menos que de un gran poeta irlandés, Synge, fallecido hace unos años, traducda [sic] también hace tiempo, por P. R. Castro, un escritor gallego de sólida cultura inglesa. La obra es de carácter popular, costumbrista y de una gran afinidad espiritual con lo popular nuestro. [...] Antes de levantarse el telón, Suárez Picallo dijo unas palabras referentes a las traducciones para enriquecer el acervo lingüístico de nuestro idioma.86
Hence, the documents we have at our disposal indicate clearly a degree of instrumentalisation of the performance. O casamento do latoneiro was a means for community cohesion, cultural dissemination and linguistic enrichment, in pursuit of prestige for a differential Galician identity.