García Lorca at the Edge of Surrealism by Richter David F

Author:Richter, David F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

[while I yearn to be:

lying with John

on the diván,

on the mattress to lay

with beautiful Ray,

upon a settee

with Joey,

on the seat

with Pete,

on the floor

with the one I care for,

stuck to the door

with handsome Arthur,

on the roomy chaise lounge

with Ray, Pete and John,

with Arthur and Joey.

Ay! ay! ay! ay! ay!][60]

The desire to be with many men is fulfilled after the marriage to Cristóbal and while he sleeps. Yet after the men come and go, Rosita goes unpunished, thus providing the underpinnings of a truly subversive character and frustrating the goals of a conservative audience that would have her reap the consequences of her illicit and immoral behavior. While the mother’s language and intentions seem to frustrate propriety, her death seems symbolic of the general tragedy and decadence of mass consumption. That is, her hoarding of silver and gold from Cristóbal in the marriage of her daughter leads only to violent reactions and death. That Rosita is not chastised for her behavior accentuates the complete liberation of desire in contrast to the moral vision of a censoring society. With the Director’s interruption of the dramatic events and the theatrical space, however, another transgression occurs, this time aesthetic in nature. As Fernández Cifuentes notes, “en el mismo escenario [hay] una yuxtaposición violenta, ejemplar, de la persona—el cuerpo—del Director y las no-personas de los muñecos”[61] [on the same stage there is an exemplary but violent juxtaposition of the body of the human Director with those of the non-human puppets]. This confusion between puppets and actors highlights the play’s constant questioning of boundaries between life and art, reality and illusion.

Lorca’s Retablillo, then, presents a complete theatrical renovation of dramatic structures and spaces, subject matter, and moral value systems. The subjects embody the free expenditure of desire and expression. The Retablillo captures the truth of the individual, a truth that is rooted in the expression of the self without barriers. In essence, the Lorquian construction of the sovereign subject goes beyond what the surrealists sought in shocking the audience (although Lorca’s Retablillo certainly did that also) as it establishes completely liberated characters who, without boundaries, pursue their own individual and contextualized truths. Whereas for the unfaithful wife this truth involves sexual relations without limits, for Cristóbal the truth of the subject is based on the expression of violence. The Director, upon terminating the action and outrage, summarizes the goals and effects of the staged puppet play. He insists that the crude language has been used in order to awaken a new artistic sensibility. Speaking to the audience, the Director interjects:

Basta. (Agarra a los muñecos y se queda con ellos en la mano mostrándolos al público.) Señoras y señores: Los campesinos andaluces oyen con frecuencia comedias de este ambiente bajo las ramas grises de los olivos y en el aire oscuro de los establos abandonados. . . . Las malas palabras adquieren ingenuidad y frescura dichas por los muñecos que miman el encanto de esta viejísima farsa rural. Llenemos el teatro de espigas frescas, debajo de las cuales

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