Catalan and Spanish Drama in Contact (1890–1939)

From the end of the nineteenth century to the first three decades of the twentieth century, the will to modernize Catalan literature favoured the translation of contemporary Spanish drama from Galdós to Casona into Catalan, and its performance. In the same period, some Catalan authors such as Àngel Guimerà, Santiago Rusiñol, and Josep M. de Sagarra were translated into Spanish and also performed on stages in Madrid. However, the exchange that took place between both Iberian dramas received a heavy blow with the establishment of Franco’s dictatorship in 1939. While emphasizing the importance of cultural promoters, playwrights, translators, and critics for contact between Catalan and Spanish drama, this chapter studies the presence of the latter in literary and dramatic collections translated into Catalan and, in turn, that of Catalan drama in the same type of collection translated into Spanish during a time marked by an unusually fruitful ‘complicity’ between both theatrical scenes.