ABSTRACT
“Revolution in the Playhouse” proposes an analysis of The Dream of Life (1935), Lorca’s most political drama, as a modernist mysterium—a theatrical practice with a strong allegorical and didactic orientation that acquired relevance in the politically charged years of the interwar period. In The Dream of Life, the unifying presence of the dramatic action both on the stage and in the different sections of the theater reinforces the split between what occurs within the walls (theater as pretense) and the violent conflict that is supposed to take place, simultaneously, outside the theater building. Lorca’s defense of didactic theater was a direct response to contemporary politics ‘outside’ his work while, at the same time, it stemmed directly from his lifelong desire to transform the stage in search of a new audience.
