The dramaturgy of absence in two plays by Alberto Conejero

Abstract

The article analyzes two plays by Alberto Conejero, La piedra oscura and Los días de la nieve, which offer their audience a dramatic and at the same time poetic vision of two forgotten figures of the 20^th century: Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the secretary of La Barraca and the last great love of Federico García Lorca, and Josefina Manresa, the widow of Miguel Hernández. Both of them lived in the shadow of two great poets of 20^th century Spanish literature, who in the plays become absent but latent co-protagonists. The analysis – studying the theoretical writings, interviews and talks given by Conejero himself – on the one hand focuses on the encounter and the poetry, key elements in the work of the playwright from Jaén, and on the other hand, on the details of the dramaturgy of absence, a technique that the author utilizes in both plays.