"Other" Spanish Theatres: Erasure and Inscription on the Twentieth-Century Spanish Stage by Maria Delgado (review)

Reviews 157 ing and irritating. The chapter intrigues because of the way it examines the musical development of Beckett's work from an early expressionist fascination with pleasure and pain towards an Apollonian concern with structure, which Albright brilliantly describes as being "as purposeless and bleak as formlessness itself' (156). The chapter irritates, however, because of its brevity - it is only eighteen pages long. Such insights, if they are to attain their full force, need to be developed in greater detail and iIIustrdted by close reading of specific works. Despite this criticism, Beckett and Aesthetics is an intellectual tour de force that offers a profound and lucid analysis of Beckett's artistic practice. Albright is at ease with the numerous discourses he uses and writes poetically and provocatively. I particularly liked his technique of using hypotheses for explanatory purposes. The following example is typical of his style: "If Waiting [or Godot represents a pre-theatre, and Endgame a post-theatre, Happy Days represents a sort of blink-theatre, a stage work swooped together into a durationless manner of being. an eternal present, as if a single second were spun out into an evening entertainment" (75). For its elegance, rigour. and insights, Beckett and Aesthetics ought to be required reading for anyone interested in Beckett's drama and performance work. WORK CITED Sarte, Jean Paul. Saint Genet: AclOr and Martyr.Trans. Bernard Frechlman. London: Heinemann, 1988. MARI A DELGADO. "Other" Spanish Theatres: Erasure and Inscription on the Twentieth -Century Spanish Stage. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 356, illustrated. £47.50 (Hb); £17.99 (Pb). Reviewed by David George, University o/Wales Swansea This important monograph builds on recent work by English-language and Spanish critics in viewing the dramatic text as one element of the theatrical whole. With her expertise in Hispanic studies, theatre studies, and film, Maria Delgado is uniquely qualified to write it. She moves effortlessly among textbased theatre, performance, and cinema in this rigorously documented study. Much of its subject is relatively uncharted territory, and Delgado has necessarily contextualised it in a way that allows the Hispanist to see the wider theatrical context and the theatre specialist to understand the Hispanic background. Delgado sets her subjects very firmly in an international context through her analysis of their impact on other countries and through her consid- REVIEWS eration of the reception of individual plays bOlh in Spain and in olher countries . She makes frequent and effective use of contemporary reviews and interviews in several languages, thereby lending grealer authority to her arguments and providing insight into theatre criticism in various countries. The book looks in detail at the work of Spanish theatre practilioners who enjoyed or enjoy great popularity with audiences but who have been largely neglecled in academic studies, in particular those by British and North American critics. The six subjects of Delgado's book (Ihree actresses, a stage designer, a director, and a performance group) have been marginalised for a number of reasons: because they are women, because they are from the so-called minority cultures within Spain, particularly Catalonia, or simply because they are not dramatists. While Calalan playwrights may be little known outside their native Catalonia (unjust1y, in some cases), international audiences are much mOTe familiar with Catalan performers and directors. Els Joglars, Comediants, La Cubana, Calixto Bieito, and Llufs Pasqual are all stars on the international theatre, performance , and opera scenes. However, the fact that they are Catalan - and emanate from an innovative and dynamic theatre culture in Barcelona - is less known. Delgado grounds her study of four key Catalan practitioners in their nalive city and analyses their projection from there onLO the international stage. Chapter one is devoted to the great actress Margarita Xirgu, who was so influential on the Spanish stage in Ihe 1930S and, following Ihe Spanish Civil War, in exile in South America. Chapter four deals wilh the other inlernationally recognized Calalan actress of the twentieth century, Nuria Espert, who, like Xirgu, gave her most celebrated performances in the Spanish, rather than the Catalan, language. The subject of chapter five is Llufs Pasqual, whose repulalion was made at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona, the Odeon Theatre de l...