Another way of “translating” classical theater: Orestes I, by de P. Sánchez de Neyra and F. Ximénez de Sandoval (1930)

Abstract

Classical Greco-Latin theater has been a source and inspiration for numerous pewrformances in our culture. In general, in the staging of classical plays, three different approaches can be adopted: making theater “of” Antiquity (based on a “faithful” translation of the original), “with” Antiquity (creating from a theme, a play, a character) and “from” Antiquity (as a source of inspiration). Is only the first type mere translation? Not in our opinion, but there is another way of “translating”, in an absolutely etymological sense, that is to “carry” classical theater into another present, in the sense in which St. Jerome used it when he said that “Terence translated Menander, and Plautus and Caecilius translated the ancient comedians” (Hier. epist. 57,5). This work is an approach to a work that has remained forgotten and that is representative of the third type of theater mentioned, “from” Antiquity. The title refers to the Greek myth, in this case in a right-wing theater with political intentionality, three years before the triumph of the right-wing political forces in Spain and the year of the foundation of the Spanish Falange by José Antonio Primo de Rivera. What relation does the play have with the myth of Orestes? Apparently only the name and the presence of a royal dynasty, but it shows that classical mythology can be “translated” and used (and deformed) to support any political ideology.