Sirera, Rodolf 1948–

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Sirera, Rodolf 1948–

PERSONAL: Born 1948, in L'Horta, Valencia, Spain.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Methuen, 215 Vauxhall Bridge Rd., London SW1V 1EJ, England.

CAREER: Playwright, 1962–.

MEMBER: Escriptors Valencians de L'Audivisual.

WRITINGS:

(With brother, Josep Lluís Sirera) Homenatge a Florenti Montfort, Edic (Barcelona, Spain), 1962.

La pau: Retorna a Atenes, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1975.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) El brunzir de les abelles, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1976.

Tres variacions sobre el joc del mirall i altres peces curtes; seguides de La història de la representació frustrada de la llegenda de la princesa trista, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1977.

(With Claudi Arenas) Memòria general d'activitats, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1978.

L'assassinat del Doctor Moraleda: El verí del teatre, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1978, translated by John London as The Audition (produced in London, England, 1988), published in Modern Catalan Plays, edited by John London and David George, Methuen (London, England), 2000.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) El còlera dels déus, Eliseu Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1979.

Bloody Mary Show: Suggeriments dramàtics per a un espectacle de cabaret, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1980.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera and Xavier Fàbregas) El capvespre del tròpic, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1980.

Plany en la mort d'Enric Ribera: Assaig simfònic de documentacióbiogràfica, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1982.

(With Jordi Teixidor and Alexandre Ballester) Teatre, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1984.

Arnau: Aportació teatral a un mite clàssic, Institut del Teatre de la Diputació de Barcelona. Edicions del Mall (Barcelona, Spain), 1984.

El veneno del teatre: Dialogo entre un arostocrata y un comediante, Preyson (Madrid, Spain), 1985.

(With Jordi Teixidor and Alexandre Ballester) Teatre, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1984.

La primera de la classe, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1985.

(With Amando Blanquer) El príncep: Seguit de Històries de desconeguts, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1986.

Funció de gala, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1987.

Tres farses populars sobre l'astúcia, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1987.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) Cavalls de mar, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1988.

Indian Summer: Comedia, Edicions Bromera (Alzira, Spain), 1989.

(With others) Revistes valencianes, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1990.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) La partida, Cinquè Centenari Ciutat d'Alacant, Ajuntament d'Alacant (Alicante, Spain), 1990.

La primera de la classe, Universidad de Murcia (Murcia, Spain), 1993.

(With Faust Hernández Casajuana and Josep Lluís Sirera) Teatre, Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, Institució Valenciana d'Estudis i Investigació. Generalitat Valenciana, Diputació Provincial de València (Valencia, Spain), 1993.

El veri del teatre, Pagès Editors (Lleida, Spain), 1993.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) La ciutat perduda, Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 1994.

La caverna, Editorial Lumen (Barcelona, Spain), 1995.

Maror, [o] Les regles del gènere: Comèdia en dues parts, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1995.

(With Eduard Escalante and Josep Lluís Sirera) Teatre original complet, Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, Institució Valenciana d'Estudis i Investigació. Generalitat Valenciana, Diputació Provincial de València (Valencia, Spain), 1995.

(With Rafael Pérez González) Punt de fuga, Edicions 62 (Barcelona, Spain), 1999.

(With Josep Lluís Sirera) Silenci de negra, Edicions 3 i 4/Eliseu Climent (Valencia, Spain), 2000.

(With José Maria Rodriguez Méndez) El veneno del teatro, Institució Alfons el Magnànim (Valencia, Spain), 2000.

(With Isabel-Clara Simó and Salvador Bataller) Còmplices, Edicions Bromera (Alzira, Valencia), 2004.

Also author, with Josep Lluís Sirera, of La desviació de la paràbola (trilogy), 1975–77

SIDELIGHTS: Rodolf Sirera is perhaps the foremost playwright of the late twentieth century to write in Catalan. An ancient language spoken primarily in Spain, Catalan is also heard in parts of southern France and in Italy, as well as in the tiny nation of Andorra, located in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. Like Spanish, French, and Italian, it is a Romance language, but is very distinct from the Castilian Spanish spoken through much of the Hispanic world. After dictator Francisco Franco came to power in Spain in 1939, Catalan and other regional Iberian languages—such as Basque and Galician—were outlawed, and it was only after Franco's death in 1975 that these were once again heard in public. Since Franco's demise Catalan has undergone a renaissance, becoming the centerpiece of a regional and local cultural revival. Crucial to that revival is the Catalan theater, of which Sirera's works are the centerpiece.

The regional center for much of Catalan literature and culture lies in the town and region of Valencia in Mediterranean Spain. On llibreweb.com Sirera explained that the regional theater of Valencia plays an important role in the creation of ethnic and regional identity. The regional government of Valencia has funded programs in theatre in order to promote Catalan culture and literature. The money spent on these programs, Sirera noted, not only promotes Catalan but also encourages the survival of regional languages and cultures worldwide. Such programs, despite the politicking and posturing that inevitably characterize organizations that are both cultural and political, are valuable because they sustain and encourage new literary voices and promote new directions in theater and other arts. Because they also attract an avant-garde audience, they also promote the local economy and serve to spread the knowledge and reputation of Catalan as an important literary language.

As such an avant-garde artist himself, Sirera's works both promote Catalan and expand the boundaries of the modern theater. In Bloody Mary Show: Suggeriments dramàtics per a un espectacle de cabaret, for instance, the playwright examines some of the more absurd consequences of the murder of a dancer by her partner. At one point the dancer's severed hands become the subject of a musical interlude on the many roles hands play in modern life. "Sirera," wrote Janet W. Diaz in World Literature Today, "employs collage or montage in a deliberate pastiche, held together by the themes of the dance of death, crime and violent death itself, plus one leitmotif—the hand—in a form self-consciously 'camp.'" Maror, [o] Les regles del gènere: Comèdia en dues parts, "is a breathtaking, two-part comedy of detectivesque intrigue," stated World Literature Today contributor Albert M. Forcadas, in which the murder of a popular novelist by her adopted daughter and her lover reveals contorted family relationships. "Maror," Forcadas declared, "demonstrates touches of the absurdist theater's modality, from the closed-space technique to the paranoia and sense of helplessness that the events produce in a handful of characters." This play, the critic concluded, "is perhaps Sirera's finest dramatic accomplishment to date."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

World Literature Today, spring, 1981, Janet W. Diaz, review of Bloody Mary Show: Suggeriments dramàtics per a un espectacle de cabaret, p. 299; autumn, 1983, Albert M. Forcadas, review of Plany en la mort d'Enric Ribera, p. 625; fall, 1996, Albert M. Forcadas, review of Maror, [o] Les regles del gènere: Comèdia en dues parts, p. 941.