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Expressionism in the Contemporary Spanish Theatre PHYLLIS ZATLIN-BORING Although expressionism as a theatre movement per se is primarily a phenomenon of the German stage, culminating in the 1920'S, I expressionism continues to have an important impact on dramatic structure and technique. Spanish theatre especially makes widespread and innovative use ofexpressionism , both in the social/allegorical form most directly associated with the German movement and in the personallstream-of-consciousness form associated with American theatre, notably Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.2 The esperpento, or grotesque tragicomedy, of Ramon de Valle-lnchin in the 1920'S is closely related to German expressionism in time and intent.3 The contemporary Spanish avant-garde, in a theatre of social and political protest, tends to reflect the influence of Valle-Inclan in particular and expressionism in genera1.4 On the commercial stage, the dominant form of expressionism is the psychological with its projection of inner states of mind; it is found most frequently in the works of two of contemporary Spain's most important and innovative playwrights, Antonio Buero Vallejo and Jaime Salom. German expressionism, while incorporating concepts of modem psychoanalysis , was deeply concerned with political reality. It was an attack on both bourgeois art and bourgeois society. Making use of disjointed plots and dialogue, exaggerated or distorted action, depersonalized characters, and abstract lighting or scenery, the expressionists rejected the conventions of realistic theatre. Walter H. Sokel finds in the movement "elements of distortion, exaggeration, grotesqueness, and implausibility that clearly anticipate the alienating effects encountered in the avant-garde theater of our own time."5 Valle-lnclan's esperpentos with their episodic structures, grotesque visions of Spain, and dehumanized characters similarly belong to the expressionist current ofnonrepresentational theatre and stand as antecedents to the postwar theatre of the absurd. Seldom produced during the author's lifetime, Valle-Inclan's plays have achieved major importance on the Madrid PHYLLIS ZATLIN-BORING stage only in the past decade. Luces de bohemia (Bohemian Lights, 1920) ran for more than 400 performances in 1971 and received the National Theatre Prize for that year. Los cuernos de don Friolera (Don Friolera's Horns, 1921), prohibited by the censors throughout the Franco regime, was staged with considerable success in 1976. The rebellion against authority and criticism of a deteriorating society that served as catalysts to expressionist theatre in the first quarter ofthe century also influenced many Spanish works from the 1960'S on, including those of the so-called underground or new theatre,6 as well as occasional plays that did reach the boards. It is therefore not surprising to find certain affinities between expressionist theatre ofthe 1920'S and more recent Spanish drama, specifically in those plays that project the author's inner vision of a repressive and dehumanizing political, social, or economic reality. Undoubtedly the most widely recognized example of Spanish social expressionism is Carlos Muniz's El tintero (The Inkwell, 196r).7 As Loren Zeller has noted, Muniz's farce, thematically related to Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (1923), contains many expressionistic elements, including its episodic structure, nonrealistic stage settings, abstract lighting, and symbolic costuming and music.8 Crock, the protagonist, appreciates the beauty ofnature and the value of friendship and family; he is unable to adjust to the dehumanizing and hierarchical company where he works. For the director and his obsequious underlings, the ideal employees are the unthinking, unfeeling, and identical Pim, Pam, and Pum. With the exception of Crock's nameless friend, the other characters, including Crock~s wife, are caricatures who represent the alienating elements of Crock's world. They are not, as Soke! suggests with respect to certain German plays, genuine antagonists who "act as independent personalities motivated by aims of their own," but rather mere foils (p. xxi). Collectively they form an abstract, grotesque, and subjective image of contemporary society. Varying significantly from one playwright to another, the expressionist movement in the first decades ofthe century was multifaceted. The Inkwell and other examples of recent Spanish political theatre are related to that variety which emphasizes an insanely materialistic world or technocratic, Kafkaesque nightmares.9 Taken to the extreme, the deformed reality becomes science fiction, as in Karel...

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