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Tirano Banderas on the stage: the deplorable adaptation of a masterpiece.

Article Excerpt
Taking advantage of a visit to Madrid, on May 18, 2005, I attended with a couple of friends --a Spanish novelist and his spouse-- the staging of Valle-Inclán's Tirano Banderas at the Teatro Albéniz. (1) At the time, I was delighted to be able to witness such ah event for two reasons. First, Tirano Banderas remains one of Don Ramon's masterpieces: a synthetic work documenting many Modernist and Cubist traits, this well-designed and highly functional novel sheds substantive light on a major sociological/political manifestation of Hispanic culture (namely, the figure of a dictator). Second, years earlier --in October 1992--, I had attended an extraordinary adaptation of the novel at the Teatro Maravillas, in Madrid.

Much to my surprise --and to the astonishment of those who viewed the play with me (2)-- we were subjected to an extremely weak performance. Specifically, the acting was artificial --acartonado-- whereas the decorations, props and settings were not conducive to conveying the objectives of the work. In the case of its cast, a...

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