ABSTRACT
Maria Aurèlia Capmany (1918-1991) was one of the most prominent Catalan writers of the twentieth century, occupying a singular place in the intellectual and cultural life of Catalonia during the period of the Franco dictatorship and the democratic transition. Her theater is aesthetically daring in its integration of an ample range of contemporary dramatic modes, from intellectually complex to more popular forms of spectacle. Epic theater, monologue, documentary theater, historical drama, and “literary cabaret” (a genre of her own invention), all make repeated appearances throughout her theatrical trajectory. Moreover, on the whole her work stands as a testament to her preoccupation with history, particularly with the irreconcilable tensions between what Spanish poet Antonio Machado memorably called las dos Españas [the two Spains]. Liberalism vs. conservatisms, secularism vs. religion, working class vs. bourgeoisie-these tensions culminated during her own life with the twentieth-century conict that was the Spanish Civil War, a conict that resonates throughout her theatrical writing.
