Lorca’s ghost meets Shakespeare at Conde Duque

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Lorca’s death left unfinished his manuscript Comedia sin título and now director Juan Carlos Corazza completes it with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was already part of Lorca’s metatheatrical exercise about the need for a theater that shows the real suffering of the people. With a sober and consequent mise-en-scène but including a cast of 10 actors and actresses, we witness complicity with the audience, informed of the process of both plays through the same actors who are to play one, two, three or four different roles. Galego, Andalusian and Argentinian accents plus repetitions of lines and the prompter’s intervention prevent us to succumb to the conventional catharsis and instead make us take out our critical attitude towards the presented facts. The play is a master class of what Bretchian distancing or Verfremdungseffect means: mixed thematics, alternate use of prose, verse and actors addressing the audience, lights all over the theater, anti-realistic scenography, reflection out loud about the play, use of humor in tragic scenes, inappropriate clothes…everything is suitable to break the theatrical illusion. My favorite actor, versatile Manuel Morón, also in one of the best Spanish movies in the 21st century, Smoking room.

One thought on “Lorca’s ghost meets Shakespeare at Conde Duque

  1. Pingback: Bethania recomienda: Comedia y sueño: la mentira más hermosa | Tufts-Skidmore Program in Spain

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