Salvador Espriu's Idea of a Theater: The Sotjador Versus the Demiurge

Salvador Espriu's Idea of a Theater: The Sotjador Versus the Demiurge PETER COCOZZELLA Dramatic literature has made a sUbstantial.contribution toward the impressive resurgence that Catalan culture has manifested since the Renaixenfa of the early nineteenth century. Names like Frederic Soler, alias Serafi Pitarra (1839-1895), Apel.les Mestres (1854-1936), Santiago Rusiftol (1861- 1931), Ignasi Iglesias (1871-1928), Adria Gual (1872-1943), Angel Guimera (1874-1924), and JosepMaria de Sagarra (1894-1961) attest to the halcyon days of a tradition which, despite the vicissitudes and dire circumstances of more recent times, persists among a select group of Catalan men and women devoted, against all disheartening odds, to a theater conceived and enacted in their native language.} To be sure, the existence of an authentic Catalan theater in the second half of the twentieth century can only be described as precarious; it has survived only by virtue of strenuous effort. During the last four decades only a few plays written in Catalan have reached the printer's shop and even fewer have attained an ephemeral run on the boards. Well-informed scholars readily recognize the unusual hardships which have surrounded the publication and performance of those texts. Let it suffice to mention here, simply, the principal ailments that have been perceptively diagnosed and analyzed by some outstanding hispanists. On the one hand, there are the constraints inherent in the very nature ofthe linguistic medium: after all, Catalan, a language of the "minority," is doomed to a limited audience by the verdict of history, sociology, and politics.2 On the other hand, there are the ingrained ills that post-Civil-War Catalan theater shares with its Castilian counterpart: not only the lack of support from the policies of a centralist, ultra-rightist government but also the downright repressive measures of . censorship, and the apathetic, ifnot outright hostile response from the public at large, unaccustomed to the challenges of a stage presentation that aims at stirring rather than lulling the conscience.3 For their part, the Catalan playwrights ofthe last two orthree generations are Salvador Espriu's Idea of a Theater 473 well aware that there are no quick cures for the current crisis. A wellestablished reputation for courage, resourcefulness, ingenuity, highmindedness , and steadfast purpose - indeed, a capacity for sheer endurance in weathering one crisis after another - will attest to the exemplary integrity and dedication these, authors have maintained for years and still continue to exhibit. Time and again they have refused to succumb to political pressures of any kind that would coerce them to espouse the outmoded canons of the literary establishment. lime and again they have spumed the easy route of expediency that would have led them to the pursuit of an easy and lucrative popularity, by catering to the cravings of the bourgeoisie for escapist entertainment. No less striking than the professionalism and integrity of these authors are their outstanding achievements. Thanks to their prominent roles at the cutting edge of the most significant developments in modem Hispanic drama, Catalan writers well advanced in their careers, such as Joan Oliver (b. 1899), Salvador Espriu (b. 1913), Maria Aurelia Capmany (b. 1918), Manuel de Pedrolo (b. 1918),. Joan Brossa (b. 1919), Ricard Salvat (b. 1934), Joan Teixidor (b. 1939), Josep Benet i Jomet (b. 1940), and Rodolf Sirera (b. 1948), have already won enthusiastic acclaim at home and, though belatedly, are gradually attracting the attention of critics abroad. Amidst this s~llar group, Salvador Espriu holds a rank of special distinction I thanks to his unique insights into the matrix of primordial tension and quintessential drama which he descries at the very heart of Catalan collective consciousness and ethnic identity.4 Various scholars have devoted seminal studies to the general tenor of Espriu's dramatic production.5 They have duly acknowledged the sense of secure moorings in history, the integration of the lore emanating from two main sources, the Bible and the myths of ancient Egypt or Greece, the pervasive elegiac mood, and the recurrent grotesque distortions in the manner of Valle-Inchin's esperpento. Two relatively recent events - the premiere in 1965 of Ronda de Mort a Sinera , that is Ricard Salvat's adaptation for the stage of...