"Lorca is one of the few indisputably great dramatists of the twentieth century" Observer The Shoemaker's Wonderful Wife and The Love of Don Perlimplin use an old story of the old man married to the young wife to expose the social attitudes of a traditional Spain bound by rigid concepts of decency, reputation and honour. The Puppet Play deploys the puppets' uninhibited and passionate emotions as a direct attack on the 'tedious triviality' of commercial theatre. The Butterfly's Evil Spell explores the themes of love and frustration, while When Five Years Pass is a surrealist play with references to the film Un Chien Andalou [The Andalusian Dog] by Lorca's friend and collaborator, Luis Bunuel.

Lorca is one of the few indisputably great dramatists of the twentieth century -- Observer

Lorca is one of the few indisputably great dramatists of the twentieth century Observer
Lorca is one of the few indisputably great dramatists of the twentieth century --Observer

Federico Garcia Lorca was born in 1898, in Andalusia, Spain. A poet and dramatist, and also a gifted painter and pianist, his early popular ballads earned him the title of 'poet of the gypsies'. In 1930 he turned his attention to theatre, visiting remote villages and playing classic and new works for peasant audiences. In 1936, shortly after the outbreak of Civil War, he was murdered by Nationalist partisans. His body was never found. Gwynne Edwards is a specialist in Spanish theatre and cinema, until recently Professor of Spanish at the University of Aberystwyth. His books include: Lorca: The Theatre Beneath the Sand; Lorca: Living in the Theatre; Dramatists in Perspective: Spanish Theatre in the Twentieth Century; The Discreet Art of Luis Bunuel: and Almodovar: Labyrinths of Passion. He has also translated and adapted more than forty plays from Spanish, French and Italian, many of which have been staged at major theatres in Britain and the United States. He has published three collections of Lorca plays with Methuen Drama, together with student editions of Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba, and also collections of seventeenth-century Spanish and contemporary Spanish-American plays adapted from the correspondence and prose writings of Dylan Thomas.