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Militant Marionettes: Two ‘Lost’ Puppet Plays of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–39

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

James McCarthy
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Extract

Although sixty years have passed since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War scant regard has been given to the theatre's contribution during the conflict to the entertainment and education of soldiers. Yet drama was prominent in the range of cultural and pedagogic activities which was a marked characteristic of the Republican army. A distinct genre, known as teatro de uigencia (theatre of urgency), was actively promoted by the Republican authorities as a means of encouraging soldiers and civilians towards a ‘correct’ pro-Republican perspective. Teatro de uigencia works were generally short, single act pieces but with a surprising variety of dramatic styles and propaganda intentions. Satirical lampooning of Franco's Nationalist forces took place, for example, alongside drama whose earnestly expressed purpose was to train the enthusiastic but inexperienced Popular Militias in battlefield strategy, the importance of fortification and the need for rigorous self-discipline. Such plays were performed by a variety of theatre companies. Some, such as Lorca's La Barraca and Max Aub's El Búho, had existed since before the war but travelled to frontline locations during the conflict to lend vigorous support to the Republican forces. Other companies, known as Guerrillas del Teatro, arose from initiatives of the Ministry of Education and were attached to the Army of the Centre and the Army of the East. Still more groups were encouraged by the General Commissariat of War through its Sub-Commissariat of Agitation, Press and Propaganda. While precise details are extremely sketchy, it is also clear that, within army units themselves, performance troupes were formed for the purposes of entertainment and politico-military education through drama.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , Spring 1998 , pp. 44 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1998

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References

Notes

1. For further information see Calzada, Luis Sáenz de la, La Barraca: teatro universitario (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1976)Google Scholar and Soler, Manuel Aznar, ‘“El Búho”: teatro de la F.U.E. de la Universidad de Valencia’, in El teatro en España entie la traditión yla vanguaidia (Madrid: CSIC, 1993), pp. 415–29.Google Scholar The novelist and dramatist Max Aub (1903–72) was active in Republican circles before and during the Civil War, particularly as director of the student theatre group, El Búho. He left Spain after the Republic's defeat and settled in Mexico City.

2. See, for example, the reports celebrating such activities in ‘Nuestro teatro-guiñol ha iniciado, con gran éxito, sus ac-tividades’, Armas y Letras, 3 (1 October 1937), p. 7 and ‘El guiñol: marionetas de la farsa faccioso’, La 70: órgano de la 70 Brigada Mixta, 49 (15 December 1938, n.p.). For information about Republican theatre in general see my ‘Drama, Religion and Republicanism’, in Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 7 (London: Harwood, 1996), pp. 47–59 and ‘Soldiers as Spectators: agit-prop theatre and the aesthetics of performance during the Spanish Civil War’, Tesserae, Vol. 2, No. 2, Winter, 1996, pp. 165–79.

3. See note 6 below.

4. Alberti, Rafael, Radio Sevilla, El Mono Azul, 45 (1938), pp. 6–8Google Scholar; repr. in El Mono Azul (Liechtenstein: Detlev Auvermann, 1977), pp. 176–8 and Los salvadores de Espana, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 485–6 (1990), pp. 11–20. Subsequently, Los salvadores. Further references are given after quotations in the text. The loss and subsequent recovery of Los salvadores is outlined in an introduction to the above edition.

5. Interview with Rafael Dieste, La Coruña, April 1980.

6. Tuñón, Raul González, ‘La Tarumba: los títeres al ser-vicio de la guerra’, Ahora, 12 05 1937, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar Further references are given after quotations in the text.

7. General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano (1875–1951) commanded the Nationalist Army of the South and administered most of Andalusia. Called ‘the radio General’ for his nightly (apparently drunken) broadcasts, he used caustic, taunting propaganda to demoralize the Republican militias. He was a frequent target of Republican propaganda and was satirized in a popular one-act farce. See Ontañón, Santiago, El bulo, in Teatro de uzgencia (Madrid: Signo, 1938), pp. 17–52.Google Scholar Interestingly, in view of Alberti's play, Cortada describes Queipo as having the air of an ‘incompetent Hispanic general in a comic opera’. See Cortada, James W., A Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (London: Greenwood, 1982), p. 411.Google Scholar General Mola, Emilio (1887–1937)Google Scholar organized the military conspiracy against the Republic in 1936 and was field commander for the futile assault on Madrid in November of the same year.

8. The Alliance was formed in early 1936 as an umbrella organization for writers and artists of the Left. For a review of the theatre section's first performance see Sánchez-Barbudo, Antonio, ‘Nueva Escena’, El Mono Azul, 10 (1936), (n.p.).Google Scholar

9. The magazine in question was Nova Galiza, the relevant issue of which Dieste found in Barcelona. I am grateful to him for providing me with a photocopy of the play. It was subsequently published in Dieste, Rafael, Teatro 2 (Barcelona: Laia, 1981), pp. 95–105.Google Scholar Further references, which will be given after quotations in the text, will be to this edition.

10. Certain quotations from Los salvadores are not translated because Alberti is creating, in a sophisticated and witty manner, a kind of ‘nonsense’ language. Their meaning is, however, clear from their context in the article.

11. The verse's humour is more apparent if it is borne in mind that the letter‘j’ in Spanish is pronounced ‘ch’ as in the Scottish word loch and rolls from the back of the throat.

12. The military and financial assistance offered to the Nationalists by Hitler and Mussolini was one of the major diplomatic and political issues of the war. For further information see Thomas, Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (London: Penguin, 1977).Google Scholar

13. For Portugal's role in the conflict see Thomas, Spanish Civil War, pp. 359–60.

14. See, for example, Bleiberg, German, Sombras de héroes, in Teatro de urgencia, pp. 97–127.Google Scholar Bleiberg fought on the Republican side in the Basque Country. The play deals with the destruction of Guernica by German aviation and presents German and Italian officers kicking the corpses of dead victims, cutting off their fingers in order to steal precious rings and ordering the rape of surviving women by Moorish troops.

15. See Thomas, , Spanish Civil War, p. 373.Google Scholar

16. For an impression of the huge difficulties which the Republicans faced in creating an army sufficient to resist the military insurrection, see Alpert, Michael, ‘Soldiers, Politics and War’, in Revolution and Civil War in Spain, 1931–1939 (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 202–25.Google Scholar

17. Narezo, Gabriel García, iHacia la victoria!Google Scholar (Valencia (?): Subcomisariado de Propaganda, 1937 (?). Further references will be given after quotations in the text.

18. For further information about such activities see Martín, Francisco Luis, La cultura socialista en Espana 1923–1930 (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1993), pp. 209–21.Google Scholar See also García Lorca's description of rural audiences at puppet shows in Retablillo de Don Cristóbal, in Obras com-pletas, 3 volumes (Madrid: Águilar, 1974), II, 491–513 (p. 513).

19. For further information see Álvarez, Cristina García, ‘El teatro durante la guerra civil en la zona nacional’, in War and Revolution in Hispanic Literature, edited by Boland, Roy and Kenwood, Alun (Melbourne-Madrid: Voz Hispanica, 1990), pp. 197–209Google Scholar and Marrast, Robert, El teatre durant la guerra civil espanyola (Barcelona: Institut del Teatre, 1978).Google Scholar

20. For further information see Memoria del patronato de Misiones Pedagógicas (Madrid: n.p., 1934), pp. 122–26 and Gagen, Derek, ‘Puppets and Politics: Rafael Alberti's Dos farsas revolucionarias’, Quinquereme, Vol. 7, No. 1, 01, 1984, pp. 54–73.Google Scholar

21. Alberti, Rafael, Bazar de la providencia, in Bazar de la providencia: dos jareas revolucionarias (Madrid: Editorial Oc-tubre, 1934), pp. 5–15.Google Scholar

22. Tuñón, González, p. 8.Google ScholarRobles, Gil (1898–1980)Google Scholar was the leader of the right-wing coalition in the years immediately prior to the Civil War and was suspected by the Left of Fascist sympathies. Lerroux, Alejandro (1864–1949)Google Scholar was leader of the conservative Radical Party and became Prime Minister in 1933. He was despised by many on the Left and both he and his party were largely discredited by a financial scandal in 1935.

23. For further information about the tradition of puppetry in Spain, see Varey, J. E., Historia de los titeres en España desde sus origenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1957)Google Scholar and Aladro, Carlos Luis, La tía Norica de Cádiz (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1976).Google Scholar