Resumen de Power, Politics, and Comic Theatre: Political Satire as Dissidence in "La torna" and "Ubú president" by Els Joglars
If any theatre company, in Catalonia and Spain, has pushed the bound-aries of political satire, it is Els Joglars. Throughout their history they havedelighted in sending up political figures and controversial events of the day.This chapter analyses examples drawn from two very different moments inthe development of the company, La torna [Left Overs] (1977) and UbuPresident [President Ubu] (2001), to examine how they comically articulatetheir political satire. Why was the humour in both pieces so very incendiary?At the root of our laughter, in these instances, is the shared actor-audience awareness of challenging figures of power in a climate where such challengesare not welcome and often escalate out of control. Els Joglars employ theiraudience's laughter as a shared tool for directing criticism at power.
