El Veneno Del Teatro by Rodolf Sirera, and: Hystérie by Opera-Collage: Grupo de Acción Instrumental, and: Isabel, Reina De Corazones by Ricardo López Aranda, and: El Carnaval De Un Reino by José Martín Recuerda (review)

those people, but I am in the minority. For the majority, sitting at home in front of a television set with pizza and beer is enough. The theatre is an act of futility that we must take in dead earnest. The theatre becomes important when those who make it realize it is without importance. Like getting up in the morning, theatre is an existential act. EL VENENO DEL TEATRO Rodolf Sirera Directed by Emilio Hernindez Teatro Maria Guerrero (Madrid) HYSTERIE Opera-Collage: Grupo de Accibn Instrumental Directed by Jacobo Romano; Musical direction by Jorge Zulueta Teatro Espafiol (Madrid) ISABEL, REINA DE CORAZONES Ricardo Lopez Aranda Directed by Antonio Mercero Teatro de la Comedia (Madrid) EL CARNAVAL DE UN REINO Jos6 Martin Recuerda Directed by Alberto Gonzalez Vergel Centro Cultural (Madrid) Marion Peter Holt The appointment of Lluis Pascual, from Barcelona's Theatro Lliure, to the directorship of Spain's National Theatre created an air of expectation as the fall season began in Madrid. The 31-year-old director's schedule was an exciting one, including an inaugural production of Brecht's 1924 version of Marlowe's Edward // and a new staging of Valle-nclin's masterpiece, Luces de Bohemia (Bohemian Lights), which is to be remounted in Paris following its Madrid run. Because of an injury sustained by a principal actor during rehearsals, the opening of Edward // was unavoidably postponed. To begin his first season, Pascual substituted an impeccably staged production of El veneno del teatro (Theatre Poison), a minor but intriguing twocharacter play on the ubiquitous subject of fiction-versus-reality by the Valencian dramatist Rodolf Sirera. The orchestra seats of the multi-tiered Maria Guerrero Theatre had already been removed to provide a Peter Brook-style arena for Edward //, and 77 designer Antonio Cort6s shrewdly exploited the extensive playing area, creating a striking dark-toned and glossy set with a sunken pool table and a large grandfather clock that recorded the exact playing time of the piece. Two of Spain's most accomplished actors, Jos6 Maria Rodero and Manuel Galiana, performed the some 65 minutes of verbal parrying with unflagging assurance and precision. While El veneno del teatro offers no new insights into the endless weighing of the relation of life and theatre, except perhaps in the political suggestions of the subtext, this production provided tension , suspense, and a startling visual demonstration of how to perform a death scene. In Madrid's other leading non-commercial house, the municipal Teatro Espahol, the four-hundredth anniversary of performances on the site was being observed with a spectrum of theatre from Shakespeare and Calder6n to contemporary collaborative works. Hysterie, a multimedia "operacollage " by the Grupo de Accion Instrumental (in a production credited to Frankfurt's Theater-Am-Turm) followed Terenci Moix's poorly conceived adaptation of The Tempest for Nuria Espert. Hystsrie juxtaposes and interweaves the inconclusive mutterings of hysterical lunatics with the controlled hysteria of the operatic aria, the art song, and hard rock. Wisps of opera recitative in Italian or French are repeated like a needle stuck in a groove, and arias are begun by singers only to be punctuated or interrupted by choreographed displays of onanism or sexual assault. Meaning is implied and successfully conveyed through visual and sonic means that transcend conventional verbal definition of plot and character relationships. Hysterie was performed on a simple set of geometrical platforms with two pianos which accompany the live musical numbers, but the costumes displayed by the accomplished ensemble of actors were sometimes as lavish as those associated with performances of the operas from which the selections were drawn. This mosaic of music, polyglot "dialogue" and orchestrated dramatic movement has a theatrical logic of its own-perhaps clearer to the viewer familiar with the substance of 19th-century opera but easily communicable to any attentive audience. Spanish playwrights continue to explore their country's troubled past in sometimes brilliant and revisionist theatrical recreations. Ricardo L6pez Aranda's Isabel, reina de corazones (Isabel, Queen of Hearts) focuses on the exile of the 19th-century Queen Isabel II and is obviously written to the histrionic measurements of singer-actress Nati Mistral. Aranda is more concerned with the personality of an earthy...