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Spain Part 42 - El teatro, ¡Ay Carmela!
Mar. 5th, 2008 07:08 pmAt school on Wednesday we got back a lot of exams, and I realized that I hadn’t done too badly, which was a nice feeling after stressing out for the last week. My mind wasn’t completely on classes that day, but I managed to take some notes and all anyway. In Spanish Lit we read a part of ¡Ay Carmela! which is a play about the end of the Spanish civil war after Franco had won and how an actress was gunned down after performing for some prisoners of Franco from other countries who had come to help the republic in Spain, but had obviously failed, because she came out on stage wrapped in the flag of the republic and sang the song ¡Ay Carmela! which was the song of the rebellion. We were going to see the play that night, so it was especially important to get an idea of what was going on because it’s really abstract. Carmela comes back as a ghost to her husband and among other things they argue over whether she acted correctly that night or should have kept her political ideas to herself. Carmela tells her husband that she thinks he’s a coward, but according to her husband they are artists and politics shouldn’t matter to artists. Anyway, it was nice to get an idea since you can see how confusing that might be by watching the play in Spanish and having no clue what was happening.
After classes I met up and talked with Nacho, who is the leader of the Danzas del mundo, to tell him that sadly most people were not going to be there today because we had the play to go to. We haven’t had the taller in two weeks now because finals had been the week before, but Nacho promised we would do something exciting the next week. I rushed home to eat la cena before Alicia and I had to leave for the play. We had tortellini pesto for dinner, which was a treat since we don’t have pasta all that often and I absolutely love tortellini. We met up with Chrysten since we live so close to her, to walk together to the theatre.
The teatro doesn’t look much different from any other building on the outside, but the inside is incredible. It wasn’t very big, but it was decorated like the Fox theatre, and there was a sky painted on the ceiling. The box seats, instead of being up in the balcony were lined up on the first floor around the regular seating. There were lots of deep red colors and the seats were velvety and comfortable. Ryan, who ended up sitting near us, showed me how to put a different kind of flash on my camera so that I could take some nice pictures of the theatre.
The play was absolutely incredible. It was hard to understand at first, especially some of the jokes because they were mostly tricks of language, so you couldn’t depend on gestures or anything. I understood a lot more of the serious parts, which were really dark and complicated. For instance, Carmela’s husband asks her what it’s like to be dead, and she tells him that there’s no heaven or hell but that everyone is just waiting in a line in a grey world where nothing happens. She did meet Ruben Darío however, who wrote her some poetry. Then of course there’s the whole war theme, which is of course a very happy topic. I ended up crying, and I felt really silly at first, even though I know that Spanish plays/movies are normally supposed to make you cry. After the play however, when I saw that my professor Augustín had cried as well, I felt a little better. Alicia, Chrysten and I walked home after, and the streets were actually pretty full for a Wednesday night. I felt bad for Chrysten since it was already 1,00 and she still had homework to do. I made sure to go to bed right away since I had to get up and catch a bus to Barcelona in the morning.
After classes I met up and talked with Nacho, who is the leader of the Danzas del mundo, to tell him that sadly most people were not going to be there today because we had the play to go to. We haven’t had the taller in two weeks now because finals had been the week before, but Nacho promised we would do something exciting the next week. I rushed home to eat la cena before Alicia and I had to leave for the play. We had tortellini pesto for dinner, which was a treat since we don’t have pasta all that often and I absolutely love tortellini. We met up with Chrysten since we live so close to her, to walk together to the theatre.
The teatro doesn’t look much different from any other building on the outside, but the inside is incredible. It wasn’t very big, but it was decorated like the Fox theatre, and there was a sky painted on the ceiling. The box seats, instead of being up in the balcony were lined up on the first floor around the regular seating. There were lots of deep red colors and the seats were velvety and comfortable. Ryan, who ended up sitting near us, showed me how to put a different kind of flash on my camera so that I could take some nice pictures of the theatre.
The play was absolutely incredible. It was hard to understand at first, especially some of the jokes because they were mostly tricks of language, so you couldn’t depend on gestures or anything. I understood a lot more of the serious parts, which were really dark and complicated. For instance, Carmela’s husband asks her what it’s like to be dead, and she tells him that there’s no heaven or hell but that everyone is just waiting in a line in a grey world where nothing happens. She did meet Ruben Darío however, who wrote her some poetry. Then of course there’s the whole war theme, which is of course a very happy topic. I ended up crying, and I felt really silly at first, even though I know that Spanish plays/movies are normally supposed to make you cry. After the play however, when I saw that my professor Augustín had cried as well, I felt a little better. Alicia, Chrysten and I walked home after, and the streets were actually pretty full for a Wednesday night. I felt bad for Chrysten since it was already 1,00 and she still had homework to do. I made sure to go to bed right away since I had to get up and catch a bus to Barcelona in the morning.
