‘The jealous of herself’, by Tirso de Molina. /
from June 30 to July 24
The theatrical event will present 17 international and 37 national productions from 55 companies from 10 countries
The Almagro International Classical Theater Festival recovers its splendor, its spaces, its full capacity, the experience of living other lives in any corner of the municipality after the pandemic. Its 45th edition embraces the verse of the Uruguayan writer Ida Vitale ‘Ser en la noche un ser como en el día’, a powerful motto to live with light in the dark and turn summer nights in Almagre into a great party.
This year, the accents of the festival will be feminist, Americanist, inclusive and accessible, patent in the more than fifty shows programmed in the Corral de Comedias, the Plaza Mayor, AUREA, the Adolfo Marsillach Theater, the Casa Palacio de Juan Jedler (Patio de Fúcares), the Municipal Theater and the Casa Palacio de los Villareal (Palacio de los Oviedo).
Between June 30 and July 24, Almagro faces, according to its director, Ignacio García, what may be “the most complex edition, the most varied in terms of the origins of the productions.” Coming from ten countries, the presence of Latin America stands out, with Uruguay as the guest country.
They will also be able to see productions from Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, for the first time at the festival, Mexico and the United States. In addition, Almagro will have companies from the United Kingdom, Italy and the Ivory Coast. Spain will provide shows from 12 autonomous communities, of which Galicia is the invited community.
Prize to Lluís Pasqual
The delivery of the Corral de Comedias Award to Lluís Pasqual will open this 45th edition on June 30, whose theater performances will begin that same day at the Adolfo Marsillach Theater with ‘Adolfo Marsillach soy yo’, a tribute to the Spanish actor, author and theater director, with directed by the director of the National Classical Theater Company (CNTC), Lluís Homar.
The CNTC will also be present with ‘El Diablo Cojuelo’, Juan Mayorga’s version of the novel by Vélez de Guevara for the clown company Rhum & Cia; ‘El burlador de Sevilla’, a CNTC co-production with the Grec Festival, and ‘Lo fingido true’, again directed by Lluís Homar.
Uruguay, guest country
This year, Almagro will have Uruguay as a guest country. It is, explains the director of the festival, Ignacio García, a “way of thanking great exiles from Spanish theater such as José Estruch and Margarita Xirgu for their welcome, who left a trail and a priceless legacy in the way of expressing verse.” The South American country will bring emblematic titles from the Golden Age repertoire such as ‘Semíramis’, ‘El perro del hortelano’ or ‘The constant prince’, along with companies such as Comedia Nacional, El Galpón or the vision of Góngora established by Gustavo Espinosa and Charles Reherman. Added to all this is the “kindness” of the artist HOGUE (Horacio Guerriero), who has created the image for the festival’s poster.
Galicia, invited community
As a guest community, Galicia follows, in this way, the path opened by the festival to decentralize the eminently Castilian canon of the Golden Age, and share the co-official languages and the accents of other classical theatricalities. Through co-productions carried out under the auspices of the Galician Drama Center, the Galician community will present ‘Estrela do día’, by Quico Cadaval, about the Cántigas de Santa María by Alfonso X; ‘La Toffana’, written by the novelist Vanessa Monfort based on the historic trial against a woman accused of providing poison to other women in the 17th century so that they would get rid of her husbands; ‘Auto da barca’, based on the work of the same name by Gil Vicente, and ‘Arte without a script’, a proposal that investigates and investigates the possibility of the existence of a medieval theater in Galician for which there are no written works. The Galician proposal has been channeled through the Galician Agency for Cultural Industries (Agadic) and the Galician Drama Center.
The festival in data
The festival will premiere 26 productions from 55 companies, of which 17 are absolute premieres and 9 national premieres. The total number of performances amounts to 96. Almagro will once again have an important presence of female creation: seven female authors from the Golden Age and 23 contemporary female authors, and in the case of female directors there will be 22 among the more than 50 shows in this edition. In addition, twelve autonomous communities present their productions at the festival: Madrid (16), Castilla-La Mancha (7), Galicia (4), Extremadura (2), Andalusia, Asturias, Castilla y León, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Murcia.
If the pandemic forced the number of premieres to be cut last year, in 2022 the festival considerably expands the theatrical premieres, with a total of 17 absolute premieres and nine in Spain.
The Corral de Comedias will host the premieres of ‘Handfuls of fire. La Xirgu en el exilio’, a radio memoir to the actress exiled in Uruguay after the Spanish civil war; ‘Lope, the comedy to come’, about two actors waiting for the comedy that will give them the fame they crave; and ‘Eufrasia, a comedy actress’, the true story of the Golden Age interpreter Catalina Hernández.