Lorca's Experimental Theater

Critical and historical discussions of the life and work of Federico Garca Lorca, Spain's foremost poet and playwright of the twentieth century, often obscure the author's more avant-garde dramatic works. In Lorca's Experimental Theater, Andrew A. Anderson focuses on four of Lorca's most challenging plays Amor de Don Perlimpln con Belisa en su jardn, El pblico, As que pasen cinco aos, and El sueo de la vida (previously known as Comedia sin ttulo) and on the surrounding context in which they came to be written and in only one case performed during his lifetime. While none of Lorca's plays can be considered conventional, these four works stand out in his corpus for challenging theatrical conventions most forcefully, both thematically and technically. With discussions of stagecraft, artistic modernism, and the historical avant-garde, Lorca's Experimental Theater provides detailed interpretive readings of the four plays, surveys their textual and performative history, and examines the most important contemporary influences on Lorca's creation of these expressive, innovative works.