Catalan puppet theatre: A process of cultural affirmation

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Notes

1. Although General Franco remained in power until his death in 1975, puppeteers were engaged in pro-Catalan activity from the late 1960s, and shows were already being produced which represented resistance to the dictatorship during the early 1970s.

2. The Institut del Teatre is the foremost Catalan theatre training academy, offering undergraduate and postgraduate training in theatre performance, teaching and technical theatre studies. It is based in Barcelona but also has sites in Vic and Terrassa.

3. Cited in Steve E. Wilmer, Theatre, Society and Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 2, from ‘Recovering Repressed Memories: Writing Russian Theatrical History’, paper given at IFTR colloquium, Helsinki University 1997, unpublished, p. 12.

4. For further reading on puppetry of this period, see Josep A. Martí, El teatre de titelles a Catalunya (Montserrat: Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat, 1998), and Sebastian Gasch, Títeres y marionetas (Barcelona: Argos, 1949).

5. Serra d'Or began publication in October 1959 with the aim of developing a literary voice for all those concerned with different forms of artistic expression, including those critical of political and cultural repression under Franco. It is produced by the publishing arm of the Benedictine monastery at the mountain of Montserrat, near Barcelona. The Montserrat community and its publishing ventures were significant in the reclamation and celebration of Catalan culture during the late years of Francoism and throughout the following decades. Serra d'Or is considered a journal of some intellectual and artistic standing.

6. Joan Oliver, ‘El teatre literari’, Serra d'Or (June 1962), 14–16 (p. 16).

7. The work of Harry Tozer is discussed in Ray DaSilva, The Marionettes of Barcelona: Harry Tozer and His Tricks of the Trade (Bicester: DaSilva Books, 2002).

8. Xavier Bru de Sala, ‘Les grans companyies i el tresor de la imaginació’, in Lluís Permanyer, Frederic Roda, Guillem-Jordi Graells, Xavier Bru de Sala, Antoni Bartomeus, Isidre Bravo and Joan Maria Gual, Teatre a Catalunya (Barcelona: Fundació Jaume 1, 1994), pp. 38–70 (pp. 65–66).

9. Lluís Pasqual, Camí de teatre, ed. Ytak (Barcelona: Alter Pirene, 1993), p. 36.

10. Ibid., p. 38.

11. For further reading, see Jude Webber and Miquel Strubell i Trueta, The Catalan Language: Progress towards Normalization (Sheffield: Anglo-Catalan Society, 1991).

12. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 11.

13. For reading on this subject, see Joaquim Carbó, El teatre de Cavall Fort (Barcelona: Publicacions de l'Institut del Teatre, 1975).

14. Joan Baixas, ‘“¡El trabajo teatral es asunto vuestro!”: Miró, Saura, Matta y el “Teatro de la Claca”’, in Puck, 2, Las marionetas y las artes plásticas (Charleville-Mezières: Institut International de la Marionnette, 1989), pp. 14–20 (p. 14).

15. ‘Bigheads’ refers to Catalan giant masks which are worn by people to represent characters from Catalan folk culture; the actual characters vary from place to place, but are a common element in virtually all Catalan local festivals, with giant puppets, dragons and other puppet figures from mythology and folk stories.

16. The period known as the transition has given rise to numerous studies that cover rapid political and cultural shifts of the time. See, for example, Pelai Pagès i Blanch (ed.), La transició democràtica als Països Catalans: història i memòria (Valencia: PUV, 2005), Albert Balcells, Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1996), and Kenneth McRoberts, Catalonia: Nation Building without a State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

17. Joan Baixas, ‘“¡El trabajo teatral es asunto vuestro!”’, p. 16.

19. Fundació Miró, Miró en escena (Barcelona: Fundació Joan Miró, 1996), p. 354.

18. Ibid.

20. Jordi Jané, Les arts escèniques a Catalunya (Barcelona: Cercle de Lectors/Galàxia Gutenberg, 2001), p. 2.

23. Michael Billington, ‘Riverside: Mori el Merma’, Guardian (24 November 1978).

21. Union International de la Marionnette.

22. Henryk Jurkowski, Métamorphoses: La Marionnette au XXe siècle (Charleville-Mezières: Institut International de la Marionnette, 2000), p. 163.

25. Thomas Quinn Curtis, ‘Theater in Paris. Two Spectacles and a Solo’, International Herald Tribune (6 October 1978).

24. Joan Manuel Gisbert, ‘Claca Teatre: Mori el Merma’, Pipirijaina (November 1978), p. 20.

26. Fundació Joan Miró, Miró en escena, p. 392.

27. The figure of Ubu in Catalan theatre had particular resonance during the 1970s and 1980s, not only as a reminder of the absurdity of the Franco government but as an attack on all political and institutional power, as seen, for example, in the 1981 production by Els Joglars of Operació Ubú (reworked in 1995 as Ubú President).

28. For further reading, see Martí, El teatre de titelles a Catalanya, and Jané, Les arts escèniques a Catalunya.

29. Núria Enguita Mayo, Miquel Tàpies, Núria Homs and Manuel J. Borja-Villel, The Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona: Edicions de l'Eixample, 2004), p. 37.

30. Elin Diamond, ‘Introduction’, in Elin Diamond (ed.), Performance and Cultural Politics (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 1–4 (p. 1).

31. Further information can be found on the following websites: http://vilaweb.com/ontinyent/mostra01/pages/baixas.htm; www.barcelona2004.org; www.lukor.com/artículos; www.comediants.com; www.binixiflat.com; www.estaquirot.com; www.geocities.com/Broadway/stage/2488/laconica/objetfr.html; www.jbertran.com; www.labaldufateatre.com; www.rocamorateatre.com; www.teatrenu.com; www.vol-ras.com