Alejandro Casona

Alejandro Rodríguez Álvarez, known as Alejandro Casona, or also "The Lost One" (Besullo, Cangas del Narcea, Asturias, March 23, 1903-Madrid, 17 September 1965) was a Spanish playwright and teacher of the Generation of '27. has the bitter aftertaste of survival. In his own words:

I had to write the theater of love, hatred, revenge (....) I can be accused, rightly, of being detached from the contingent data, but not from man.

Alejandro Casona

Biography

Alejandro Casona was born in Besullo, an Asturian mountain village, the grandson of a blacksmith, the son of Faustina Álvarez García and Gabino Rodríguez Álvarez, both teachers. His only toy in his childhood was a chestnut tree (the & # 34; Castañarona & # 34;).The constant transfers of his parents took him to Villaviciosa and Gijón, where he discovered the sea and began high school. His adolescence and youth were spent in Palencia and Murcia. In Murcia, he studied at the Normal School of Teaching, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and at the Conservatory of Music and Declamation. He also started out as a worker in a carpentry shop and, after escaping with his friend Antonio Martínez Ferrer as apprentices to comedians from La Legua, he worked as an actor in the company of Josefino Díaz and Manuela Collado.

In 1922 he entered the Escuela de Estudios Superiores de Magisterio in Madrid, and four years later he obtained the title of Primary Education Inspector, earning a place in the Valle de Arán (1928), where he managed to set up a group of children's theater with the name El pájaro pinto. In October of that year, he married Rosalía Martín Bravo, a fellow student in Madrid, in San Sebastián. The young couple settled in the town of Lés, province of Lérida, where their only daughter, Marta Isabel, was born in 1930, and they stayed until February 1931. During that period, Casona adapted The Crime of Lord Arturo de Wilde, which was premiered in 1929 in Zaragoza by the company led by Rafael Rivelles and María Fernanda Ladrón de Guevara, and in which the pseudonym Alejandro Casona (in honor of the "casona of the teacher' from his hometown, Besullo).

His didactic vocation, inspired by the ideas of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, earned him the appointment of director by Manuel Bartolomé Cossío (president of the Board of Educational Missions created during the Second Spanish Republic), together with the musician Eduardo Martínez Torner of the Traveling Theatre or Choir and Theater of the People. This group, from 1932 to 1935, toured a large part of deep Spain staging short pieces of classical Spanish theater. For this project, Casona himself wrote dramatic versions of famous stories and stories from Spanish literature such as Sancho Panza in the Ínsula and Entremés of the young man who married a brave woman . He also adapted representative works of world literature for the theater, both for adults and for children and young people.

Photo of the report appeared in issue 229 of the magazine Chronicle in Madrid, in 1934, after the premiere at the Spanish Theatre The mermaid stranded, in which the main interpreter appears, Margarita Xirgú, and Pedro López Lagar.

In 1932, he won the National Literature Award for Flor de leyendas, a collection of readings for young people, illustrated by Rivero Gil. The following year he was awarded the Lope de Vega prize by the Madrid City Council. With such support, he was finally able to stage one of his main creations: La mermaid varada, an anti-naturalist piece, already defining his poetic style as well as mysterious ("mysterious in Asturian style& #34;, as Max Aub wrote when talking about him).

However, the outbreak of the Spanish civil war shattered all expectations of the future for Casona. His commitment to the government of the Republic was firm, but he soon realized that the war was going to take a long time. He was in a hospital in Madrid staging representations for war wounded with the Teatro del Pueblo and giving a lecture on theater in Valencia before leaving Spain in February 1937, with the company led by Pepita Díaz and Manuel Collado Montes.

1937-1962

Initially exiled in Mexico, after an exodus through Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia and Cuba, he finally settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1939. Outside of Spain he premiered the central body of his work, in the that Casona developed his theatrical style in depth, always moved by what in the words of Genoveva Dieterich could be defined as «... the conflict between reality and fantasy, the escape to a better poetic world, the search for happiness, the redemptive force of love, the reality of dreams...» From that period are, among others: Forbidden to commit suicide in spring , La dama del alba , The boat without a fisherman, The trees die standing up, The third word or The house with the seven balconies.

1962-1965

He returned to Spain in 1962, where he premiered the best of his production with public success and great critical uproar. Accepted and in a certain way used by the opening policy of the last Franco regime, Casona was, however, rejected by the younger critics who branded him as outdated and conservative. One of the great executioners of him was the magazine First Act ; among the devastating criticisms, perhaps the most thoughtful were those of his director José Monleón, collected and reviewed years later in Thirty years of right-wing theater (1971).

Discussed by some and consecrated by others, Casona staged his last work, a portrait of Francisco de Quevedo, entitled The Knight of the Golden Spurs in 1964, with an excellent performance by José Maria Rodero. He died on September 17, 1965 in Madrid.

Works

Collections

• Complete Works by Alejandro Casona, Madrid, Aguilar, 1969.
• Selected theatreMadrid, 1973.

Narrations

• Flower of legendsMadrid.

The Dramas

• The mermaid stranded, Madrid, 1934.
• The mystery of Mary CelesteValencia, 1935.
• Again the devil, Madrid, 1935.
• The mancebo who married a brava woman, Madrid, 1935.
• Our Natacha, Barcelona, 1935.
• Prohibited suicide in springMexico, 1937.
• Romance in three nightsCaracas, 1938.
• Unfinished symphonyMontevideo, 1940.
• Pinocchio and the Infantina BlancaflorBuenos Aires, 1940.
• Marie Curie's Drama Life, Written in collaboration with Francisco Madrid Buenos Aires, 1940.
• The perfect three marriedBuenos Aires, 1941.
• The lady of the dawnBuenos Aires, 1944.
• The fishless boatBuenos Aires, 1945.
• The Molinera of ArcosBuenos Aires, 1947.
• Sancho Panza in the InsulaBuenos Aires, 1947.
• The trees die standingBuenos Aires, 1949.
• The key to the loftBuenos Aires, 1951.
• To Bethlehem pastorsMontevideo, 1951.
• Seven screams at seaBuenos Aires, 1952.
• The third wordBuenos Aires, 1953.
• Crown of love and deathBuenos Aires, 1955.
• The house of the seven balconiesBuenos Aires, 1957.
• Letter from an unknownPorto Alegre, 1957.
• Three diamonds and one womanBuenos Aires, 1961.
• Letter of love of a Portuguese nunBuenos Aires, 1962.
• The knight of the golden spadesPuertollano, 1962.
• Don Rodrigo, libretto for an opera by Alberto Ginastera.

Scripts

• Twenty years and one night1941. Argentinian Filmmakers Establishments.
• In the old Buenos Aires1941. San Miguel Studios.
• The Master of the Workers1941. Argentinian Filmmakers Establishments.
• Concert of souls1942. San Miguel Studios.
• When the orange blossoms1942. San Miguel Studios.
• Ash to the wind1942. Baires studios.
• Dollhouse1943. San Miguel Studios.
• Our Natacha1936 (Spanish version), 1943 (Brazilian version) and 1944 (San Miguel Studies).
• Maria Celeste1944. Argentina Sono Film.
• The prodigy1945. San Miguel Studios.
• Le fruit mordu1945. Film Andes S.A. (co-production from France and Chile).
• Miracle of love1946. San Miguel Studios.
• The one who gets the slaps1947. Atica productions.
• The strange case of the murdered woman1949. San Miguel Studios.
• The fishless boat1950 (Argentine version, Emelco Productions) and 1964 (Spanish version)
• Romance in three nights1950. Bedoya productions.
• The trees die standing1951. San Miguel Studios.
• If I die before I wake1951. San Miguel Studios.
• Don't ever open that door., 1952. San Miguel Studios.
• An unsuccessful angel1953. Film Andes S.A..
• Seven screams at sea1954. Producer General Belgrano.
• The stork said yes! 1955. Producer General Belgrano.

Productions

• Marie Curieco-written with Francisco Madrid; Havana, 1940.
• Fenisa's hookLope de Vega, Buenos Aires, 1957.
• The mockery of SevilleTirso de Molina, Buenos Aires, 1961.
• Peribañez and the Comendador de OcañaLope de Vega, Buenos Aires, 1962.
• The CelestineFernando de Rojas, Granada, 1965.
• The dream of a summer nightShakespeare, Buenos Aires, 1960.
• Ricardo IIIShakespeare.
• SourceovejunaLope de Vega.
• The love of the four colonelsPeter Ustinov.
• Retablo jovial, brief pieces written for the Ambulant TheatreMerida, 1967.
• Farsa and justice of the governessValencia, 1970.

Poetry

• The pilgrim of the flowered beardPoetry, 1920.
• The sapo flutepoem, 1930.

Essays

• The devil in literature and art, end-of-school work, 1926.
• The devil. Its literary value mainly in Spain.
• Life of Francisco PizarroBiography.
• The women of Lope de Vega, life and theatre.

Theater for children

• The cute cat.
• To Bethlehem, pastors!
• Pinocchio and the Infanta Blancaflor
• The son of Pinocho.
• Retablo Jovial.

Ukrainian translation

• Alekhandro Kasona. Choven bez rybalky: Komedia na try dii (Alejandro Casona. The Fishless Boat: Comedy in Three Acts) / Per. z esp. Ihor Kachurovs'kyi (Translation of Igor Kaczurowskyj). - Buenos Aires, 2000.