Al amanecer

Version directed by Marie Delgado of Rafael Dieste's play: a conspiracy of aristocrats, military men and churchmen on the eve of the Civil War, which ends up as a farce. Comedy at the Salón de los Balcones of the Teatro Español.

Marie Delgado signs the adaptation and direction of this comedy based on a text by the Galician playwright Rafael Dieste. The action is set on the eve of the Civil War, during a single night inside a provincial palace. A small group of aristocrats, military officers and representatives of the Church devise a plan to escape the Republican actions they perceive as a threat, but the political intrigue soon turns into a farce in which contradictions and fear weigh more heavily than any strategy.

The cast includes the Marquis of Piedraquemada, a figure in decline, and his sister Jacinta; the young intellectual Pascalín; and Lieutenant Medina together with Adela, his wife. There is also a bishop whom they call Capellini. The characters move across the stage like shadows, torn between nostalgia for their privileges and dread of what is coming.

Dieste turns to humour, esperpento and satire to portray social groups that do not understand their age. The ending, at once tragic and absurd, closes a play first staged in 1936 in this same theatre, within a current of committed work aligned with republican ideals.