Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage

Federico García Lorca's trajectory in the theater is a lifelong search for an audience, and this book analyzes his dramatic writings for the stage, in direct response to the conditions of his contemporary industry. It emphasizes how Lorca engaged with the tradition of Spanish Baroque to break away from the conventions of the illusionist stage. The five chapters analyze his attempts to change the dynamics of the Spanish stage from 1920 to his assassination in 1936, including his incursions in symbolist and historical drama, puppetry, 'human farces', the central piece in his project of 'impossible theater', his most explicitly political play, and his three plays adopting the contemporary formula of 'rural drama'.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 158 pages
\n Publication date: 30 September 2021
\n Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
\n

Federico García Lorca's trajectory in the theater is a lifelong quest for an audience, as defined in Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage. The book explores a wide range of dramatic writings that Lorca created for the theater, directly responding to the conditions of his contemporary industry. It situates the theory and practice of his theatrical reform in dialogue with other modernist renovators of the stage.

Special emphasis is placed on how Lorca engaged with the tradition of Spanish Baroque, particularly with Cervantes and Calderón, to break away from the conventions of the illusionist stage. The book is divided into five chapters that analyze Lorca's different attempts to change the dynamics of the Spanish stage from 1920 to his assassination in 1936.

These attempts include his initial incursions into the arenas of symbolist and historical drama (The Butterfly's Evil Spell, Mariana Pineda), his interest in puppetry (The Billy-Club Puppets and In the Frame of Don Cristóbal), the two 'human farces' The Shoemakers Prodigious Wife and The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden, the central piece in his project of 'impossible theater' (The Public), his most explicitly political play, one that takes the violence to the spectators' seats (The Dream of Life), and his three plays adopting, altering, or the contemporary formula of 'rural drama' (Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba).

Chapter 5 of the book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

\n Weight: 260g\n
Dimension: 228 x 150 x 20 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781032048208\n \n