School Resource Pack for

El cuervo byAlfonso Sastre.

Produced by the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield to support the Modern Languages Drama Festival, 11-24 March 2018

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Activity sheets, comprising:

  1. Synopsis and background
  2. Edited extract from the play
  3. Class activities

Alfonso Sastre, El cuervo

A year after his wife, Laura, was brutally murdered by a crazed killer during a New Year’s Eve party, Juan settles in to spend a sombre December 31st alone. However, various guests call round believing that they have been invited to Juan’s house. Juan has not invited them, but they are the same people he invited last year. The group of friends gradually slip into a state of anxiety and confusion as reality appears to repeat itself or start over again. Is Juan’s wife dead or alive? And if she is alive, can she be saved this time?

The play is set in 1955 (or is it 1954 or some other year?). Juan returns home to a dark house on a cold and snowy New Year’s Eve and talks to his maid Luisa while they wait for the power to be restored. Luisa confesses to strange feelings of déja vu that bring to mind the horrible events of the previous New Year. Things appear to be repeating themselves when the guests from last year’s gathering arrive (the couple Pedro and Inés, and a friend Alfonsina). They claim to have received invitations from Juan, even though he insists he has sent none this year. Nevertheless, the group settle in to see in the New Year together. When Juan produces a vintage lighter or encendedor (a so-called mechero chisquero, with a long wick with a knot on the end), confusion sets in again. It seems that Laura gave the lighter to Juan as a gift after she and Alfonsina found it in a taxi on December 30th 1954. However, Inés thinks it is her lighter, given to her long ago by an old student friend from India, but which she lost only a day ago on December 30th 1955. Moreover, the rope of the wick and its knot remind the guests of the rope that was used by the killer to strangle Laura last year. They talk about the magic properties of knots in Indian culture and think the lighter may be some kind of amulet to ward off evil. But terror ensues when Alfonsina thinks she sees the killer again through the window. Time soon seems to be repeating itself and the friends do not know if they are dreaming, re-living reality or if the events of the previous year have not yet taken place. The rest of the play deals with the way the group (of 1954 or 1955) grapple with the implications of what appears to be happening to them ….

Alfonso Sastre (born in Madrid in 1926) is known for writing plays characterized by a mixture of social realism, absurdity and existentialism. He became involved in a famous polemic with Spain’s other great post-Civil War playwright, Antonio Buero Vallejo, with Sastre preferring a more directly political approach to Buero’s more allegorical style, yet equally rejecting Buero’s notion of ‘tragedy of optimism’ in favour of a more metaphysical idea of tragedy based on human defeat and failure. The existential or metaphysical dimension seems to prevail in El cuervo. The play’s title is an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe’s supernatural narrative poem ‘The Raven’ (which Juan and Alfonsina recite towards the end of the play) in which a mysterious dark raven talks to a tragic young man about the loss of his loved one, Lenore, whom he will see ‘Nevermore’ (‘Nunca más’). Hopelessness and the meaninglessness of life seem to be at the fore here. Yet, there is also an implicit political dimension to the play. It was first performed in 1957 during the Francoist oppression. Its story is of young people struggling to come to terms with the violence of the past and feeling anxious and uncertain about the future, their destinies being arbitrarily dictated by some fickle, destructive but omnipresent God-like force. Their helplessness before their fate and their grim clinging to hope in the face of despair reflect the condition of the Spanish people in the Spain of the dictatorship.

Extract from the play:

ALFONSINA - ¡Escuchadme!

PEDRO - ¿Qué te pasa?

ALFONSINA – Estoy aterrorizada.

INES - ¡Alfonsina!

ALFONSINA – No me puedo mover.

JUAN - ¡Alfonsina! ¡Alfonsina!

ALFONSINA - Tengo miedo.

PEDRO - ¿De qué? ¿De qué?

INES - ¿Adónde miras? ¿Adónde estás mirando?

ALFONSINA - ¡A la ventana!

PEDRO - ¿Qué ves? ¿Hay algo detrás de la ventana?

ALFONSINA - ¡Sí! ¡Sí! ¡Abrid la puerta! ¡Que salga alguien! ¡Atrapadlo! ¡Ha debido escaparse de la cárcel …. o del manicomio! ¡Estaba ahí!

JUAN - ¿A quién te refieres?

ALFONSINA – He visto al hombre. Su único ojo me ha mirado otra vez.

JUAN - ¡El loco! ¡El asesino de Laura!

ALFONSINA - Como hace un año. No os lo he dicho nunca ….., no sé por qué. Quizá porque no estaba muy segura. Pero ahora sí. ¡Me enseñó una cuerda con un nudo, como amenazando con ahorcarme. A través de la ventana, lo vi …., antes de que ocurriera.

PEDRO - ¿El año pasado? ¿Tú habías visto a ese hombre …. antes de que la matara?

ALFONSINA - ¡Sí, el año pasado o …. hace un momento, no sé! ¡No tiene sentido decir ‘el año pasado’ si el hombre está todavía ahí! ¿O es que ha pasado un año para nosotros y para él unos minutos?

(Juan abre la puerta)

JUAN – No hay nadie.

ALFONSINA - ¡Se ha ido! Entonces las huellas …., unas huellas en la nieve de la ventana a la puerta del jardín? ¿Están?

JUAN - (trémulo) Sí. (Inés se echa a llorar)Vamos, tranquilízate. Cálmate tú, Alfonsina. Yo también estoy muy nervioso, pero me doy cuenta de que debemos charlar para que el miedo no se apodere de nosotros.

ALFONSINA – Juan, tengo una angustia que casi no puedo respirar.

JUAN – Yo también.

PEDRO – Esta noche hay que tener cuidado, controlar los nervios. No pasará nada, y mañana nos parecerátodo un mal sueño; ya veréis.

JUAN – Alfonsina, ahora que lo pienso, no me extraña lo que te ha ocurrido. A Luisa le pasó al principio de la noche algo semejante. Y a mí, en el jardín, al entrar. Extrañas sensaciones …., como si estuviéramos viviendo de nuevo aquella noche.

ALFONSINA – O quién sabe si aquella noche no fue más que un sueño que ahora, al vivirlo de verdad, recordamos, y así tenemos la sensación de haber vivido las cosas …. Un sueño colectivo que hemos tenido una vez.

JUAN - ¿Quieres decir que hemos soñado que mataron a Laura?

ALFONSINA -Así es.

JUAN – Llevo un año viviendo, sufriendo su muerte.

ALFONSINA- ¿Qué año?

JUAN – Un año, día a día.

ALFONSINA - Así te parece por lo menos.

JUAN - ¿Quieres decir que este año último es una mentira?

ALFONSINA – Me pongo a pensar en él, en lo que me ha ocurrido durante el año y no lo encuentro muy real …. No podría jurar que lo he vivido …. Sí, puede que lo haya soñado todo.

Questions and activities

  1. Summarize the text in your own words.
  1. Imperatives. In the passages marked in red, the character is speaking to more than one person: what would they say if speaking to just one? In the passages marked in blue, the character is speaking to just one person: what would they say if speaking to more than one?
  1. Why are there written accents included in the words marked in green?
  1. Why is the subjunctive used in the passages marked in yellow?
  1. What do the characters have to say about the nature of time? What do you think about the nature of time?
  1. What do the characters have to say about the relationship between dream and reality? What do you think?
  1. Does this text indirectly imply anything about life under the Franco regime? Or about memory and the future? Why do you think it would have to be so indirect in broaching such themes?
  1. Translate the text into English.