20000317-There is no creativity crisis in theater in Spain

"It is false that in Spain there is a crisis of creativity in theater. In Spain more texts are being produced now than ever before, and most of them are published and performed in alternative theaters". This was stated at the University of Navarra by the critic José Monleón, who visited the department of Hispanic Literature on the occasion of the cycle "Spanish Theater".

"Many people use playwriting to clarify themselves and in the autonomous communities there is an important movement of authors, so there is no creative lack. I rather believe that the main problem of Spanish theater today is to gain in sincerity, to achieve an interest in the collective while defending the staff".

And the fact is that, according to this Valencian resident in Madrid, "the problems of the theater are born of a distrust in the collective, not very congruent with social problems such as unemployment or the abuse of women. What happens is that people go to the theater to be entertained and nothing else. That is what satisfies individual needs. It bothers people when they talk to us about collective problems. For example, in the face of situations like the one in El Ejido we should all be shouting and we are not".

Theater and democratic thinking

This, logically, has repercussions on the volume of audiences that go to theaters. According to Monleón, "when Paloma San Basilio and José Sacristán do 'El hombre de La Mancha', millions of people want to see it. But when it comes to a show that raises society's responsibility for the living conditions of immigrants, not so many people go to see it. People don't want to be asked questions that we don't ask ourselves on a daily basis.

And the critic, founder and director of Primer Acto magazine, believes that "this way we will end up with the essence of this art, we will end up becoming voyeurs who go to theaters to see someone's problem, when theater really affects us, we have to feel identified with what it tells us".

Regarding how politics is helping the theater, Monleón explained that "there are goods that do not belong to the political level, and culture is one of them. It is a conquest of the community and must be supported. It belongs to all of us in a democratic society, and culture is a field that should be protected and cultivated, because democratic culture is gestated in democratic thought, and this is manifested in an outstanding way in the theater".