Theatre Journal

Historical memory is a hot topic in Spanish theatre and society more generally. The long Franco regime (1939–1975) came to an end only when the dictator died in his bed in November 1975. A relatively peaceful transition was predicated on a tacit agreement by the major players not to weaponize the past, moving forward with the consensus politics enshrined in the 1978 constitution. In the twenty-first century, there is a growing divide between citizens who believe it best to let sleeping dogs lie and those who contend that the existence of mass graves and a denial of the country’s traumatic past is an obstacle to the consolidation of a mature political democracy and broader social wellbeing.

Madrid’s “Teatro del barrio” [Neighborhood Theatre], which was established in 2013, has, for example, provided a vibrant forum for practitioners, activists and audiences emotionally and politically invested in disinterring the original sins of the dictatorship and the so-called “regime of 78.” While there is a loyal clientele for such initiatives, attending sold-out productions at this hipster hangout in a multicultural neighborhood is not necessarily representative of where the conversation is heading more broadly. Merely referencing censorship alongside the use of non-traditional framing devices—the zarzuela (light Spanish opera) Doña Francisquita was adapted for television during the dictatorship—prompted catcalls from an older and generally more conservative clientele at Madrid’s Zarzuela Theatre in 2019. In this publically funded space, a 2021–2022 staging of Entre Sevilla y Triana was far less polemical. Understanding how and why a production of this zarzuela did not offend conservative sensibilities—in spite of touching on a number of the same unsettling themes that a recently premiered new play, Las hermanas de Manolete, also did—offers new sociological and theatrical insight into the cultural politics of contemporary Spain.

Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez, known professionally as “Manolete,” was the most important matador of Spain’s post-Civil War years. Beyond his prowess with the sword, he was a national hero because audiences during the so-called “years of hunger,” identified with an idol who had a melancholy countenance and emaciated frame. After Manolete died in 1947, gored in the ring, his mother, Angustias Sánchez, and his inner professional circle ostracized his lover, the actress Lupe Sino. In a previous life, she had been married to a Republican army soldier during the Civil War (1936–1939) and was rumored to have made a living as a sex worker after he was jailed. Much of the cultural production surrounding Manolete—see, for example, the film A Matador’s Mistress (Menno Meyjes, 2008) starring Adrien Brody and Penélope Cruz—hinges on the melodrama of a mythical icon caught between a passionate love affair and an over-protective Bernarda Alba-style mother. The underlying conceit of Las hermanas de Manolete is the making of a documentary film about Lupe Sino, but the play itself is set almost entirely in the home of Manolete’s sisters, the more sympathetic of whom has learning difficulties. They reminisce about the past and dissect their brother’s relationship, which began in the infamous Chicote cocktail bar, the place to score a plethora of drugs from cocaine to penicillin (a game-changer for the life expectancy of matadors).

The first husband of Manolete’s mother was a bullfighter who died of tuberculosis. She remarried another bullfighter who also died young. Manolete, her only son, was born of this second marriage. The future matador left school at twelve to help provide for his mother and five (half-)sisters. To a large extent, the Spanish Civil...