Teatros nacionales republicanos: La Segunda República y el teatro clásico español by David Rodríguez-Solás (review)

Scholars have long-recognized the importance of Golden Age works to the cultural resurgence that accompanied the Second Republic, yet few studies document in detail the way the republic deployed Golden Age culture to define the new nation. In this way, David Rodríguez-Solás’ book is laudable. It juxtaposes data often dispersed in separate volumes (like that of Misiones Pedagógicas and La Barraca) at the same time that it provides an analysis that assigns culture a primary role in shaping politics and history. The focus on theater, an art form easily accessible for an illiterate public, allows the author to examine differing perspectives on how to represent the nation’s past and future to the Spanish masses in the 1930s.

Rodríguez-Solás divides his book into five chapters. The first chapter uses the example of Misiones Pedagógicas to demonstrate how the Second Republic set out to redefine the way Spaniards saw and interacted with culture and, by extension, the nation. Rodríguez-Solás analyzes the structure of Misiones and examines how the cultural program they implemented defined the new nation for much of the Spanish population. A final section of this chapter looks at republican history textbooks. Chapter Two considers how Teatro del Pueblo joined in the creation of a shared national identity. Special attention is paid to Teatro del Pueblo’s repertoire, particularly to plays that examine the role of justice and popular sovereignty in light of the new government. In the third chapter Rodríguez-Solás corrects the misconception that La Barraca’s mission, like that of Teatro del Pueblo, was to reach rural audiences. Instead, he demonstrates that La Barraca performed mainly in urban areas and provincial capitals: “la compañía tenía como objetivo educar al público que ya había tenido algún contacto con el teatro” (105). The chapter also emphasizes La Barraca’s focus on theatricality as well as the increased emphasis on social engagement in its repertoire after the first season with works such as Fuenteovejuna. Chapter Four presents two opposing ideologies in the fight for a national theater in Spain. While one camp championed a traditional theater, and the other defended a more modern institution with explicit connections to contemporary society, both imagined a national theater that instructed the public on what the Spanish nation was and is. Clearly these two contrasting perspectives treat classical theater and its representation differently. They also encouraged different ideas and representations of nationhood. The fifth and final chapter examines the commemorations of the third centenary of Lope de Vega’s death in 1935. The ideological battle over how to pay tribute to a dramatist so emblematic of the Spanish nation prefigures the civil war the nation would devolve into in a matter of months. If on the one hand Lope represented the quintessential populism of Spanish theater, on the other he spoke to a nostalgia for Spain’s imperial Catholic past. This chapter is arguably the most interesting as it presents less familiar material and juxtaposes analysis of stagings with other cultural movements, such as the inauguration in Madrid of Lope’s house-museum or the conference cycle organized in honor of the dramatist by the conservative group Acción Española.

Teatros nacionales republicanos presents useful material, yet its structure is sometimes confusing. The first chapter strays from the larger focus on Golden Age theater. While the material and analysis at times is fascinating (for example, the discussion of photos of the reception of Misiones’ programming, 51-52), the reader struggles to place this chapter in the larger context of the book. One wonders if this material would not be better presented in the introduction where the author discusses the creation of a republican habitus. Chapter Four pulls significant weight in establishing a key concept for the entire book: how theater deliberately projects a determined idea...