Redefining the contours of hispanicity in '92: José Sanchis Sinisterra’s teatro fronterizo and the V Centenario
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[1] Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Town of Middletown, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, ISSN 1463-6204, ISSN-e 1469-9818, Vol. 21, Nº. 1, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: 1992: A Critical Reassessment), págs. 41-62
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The showcasing of José Sanchis Sinisterra’s Lope de Aguirre, traidor within the V Centenario was significant for various reasons. The event bestowed legitimacy upon a playwright who foregrounded marginality as a matter of principle and aesthetic. He promoted theater as a catalyst for social and political reforms while insisting on institutional support for theater to thrive.
Directed by José Luis Gómez, the 1992 production of Lope de Aguirre, traidor represents a striking marriage of center and fringe while paying homage to the director and playwright’s cosmopolitan artistry and revisionist mission. Like most of Sanchis’s plays, Lope de Aguirre, traidor reveres and resists the authority of Spain’s theatrical canon. It meanwhile interrogates Spain’s relationship with its colonialist past and encounter with its Other (non-European cultures) both symbolized by America, and it does so precisely at a time when national debates over historical memory and immigration were beginning to dominate public life. The critical response to this performance helps to assess Lope de Aguirre, traidor’s effectiveness in engaging society and reshaping attitudes in relation to these topics. Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco’s The Couple in the Cage, performed contemporaneously as part of the Edge '92 festival, in Madrid’s symbolically charged Plaza Colón, offers a further yardstick for evaluating the play’s impact in this regard.
