“We have to accept that theatre is entertainment. But you can’t take the word ‘enjoyment’ to mean the avoiding of reality. Theatre should be a widening of reality.” – Alfonso Sastre.

A deep divide runs down the middle of Spanish theatre. On the one hand, there are the big commercial productions, many of which can be seen lining Madrid’s Gran Vía. These low-brow shows include musicals, such as Mamma Mia or We will Rock You, but also a seemingly endless flow of relationship/sex comedies and translations of established foreign plays.

On the other side of the chasm sits the high-brow material: Spanish and other classics, as well as challenging contemporary productions which may struggle to pull in the punters but which are more likely to draw the attention of the critics. The Centro Dramático Nacional, for example, has been behind current productions of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard and Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. 

This leaves a sprawling dramatic no-man’s land, a place where accessible yet quality theatre is scarce. One way of filling that void would be to treat the classics with less reverence. Spain has a rich theatrical legacy, but the work of Cervantes, Tirso de Molina and García Lorca and other giants tends to be so venerated that it often seems trapped behind glass, out of reach (and beyond the pocket) of the ordinary spectator. It’s a mindset that was very much visible during the recent 400^th anniversary celebrations of Don Quijote. A wealth of round tables on the novel were organised, new hardbook editions were published and museum exhibitions on the author were staged – but my feeling was that an opportunity to bring Cervantes truly closer to his readers had been lost.

Another area ripe for theatre is contemporary Spanish society – not the country’s bedroom or dinner-table mores but the stuff happening out on the street. The Kamikaze theatre company is currently exploring this rich seam of dramatic material with a hyper-realist play based on the Manada sexual assault case. In 2016, five young men assaulted a young woman in Pamplona during the Sanfermines festival. Last year they were convicted of sexual abuse, but not rape, triggering a wave of street demonstrations and outrage which has shaped debate on the issue since.

Last week, Kamikaze brought the play, Jauría, to Madrid. The script, by Jordi Casanovas, is based exclusively on transcripts of the trial, which are rearranged for dramatic effect but not altered. That text and the direction, by Miguel del Arco, offer the six actors a minimalist setting in which to re-enact the circumstances of the assault and the ensuing trial to stunning effect.

“A lot has been written and said about the Manada trial, but there has been very little of depth on the subject,” Del Arco said before the first night’s performance. “We live in a society that is obsessed with headlines but we’ve lost the ability to delve into things more deeply.”

Having covered the Manada attack, the trial and the social fallout, I felt I had a good understanding of the issue. But as the director suggested, Jauría gave me an insight that went beyond what the media coverage offered. It was an insight based on facts but also on human experience.

This is not the first production to tackle contemporary Spain in such an uncompromising, vérité manner  — Rodrigo Rato’s life was brought to the stage last year in El milagro español. But the country’s messy modern psyche surely deserves to be explored further by its theatres.

Jauría is on at the Pavón theatre as part of a double bill with ‘Port Arthur’ until April 21st.  l