Archivism and Anarchivism in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Produced by the Lope de Vega Theater Company at the Roman Theater of Mérida (1955 and 1964)

Vol.:(0123456789) Neophilologus (2025) 109:67–83 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-025-09831-5 Archivism andAnarchivism inShakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Produced bytheLope de Vega Theater Company attheRoman Theater ofMérida (1955 and1964) VíctorHuertas‑Martín1 Accepted: 27 January 2025 / Published online: 28 February 2025 © The Author(s) 2025 Abstract I will discuss the first staging of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar produced at the Roman theater of Mérida. In 1955, José Tamayo–head of the Lope de Vega Theater Company–mounted Julius Caesar at the city’s Roman theater and amphitheater. José María Pemán wrote a free Spanish version of the play in verse. The company’s style, known as “Tamayoscope,” brought entertainment to the people during Franco’s rule. In 1964, Julius Caesar returned to Mérida to celebrate the Festivals of Spain, the 25th Anniversary of Peace, and Shakespeare’s Quatercentenary. Though this Julius Caesar presented a positive view of the regime, it gave way to resistance to Francoism. To prove this, I will examine the archives of this Julius Caesar. I contend that these archives problematize the production’s propaganda. The 1955 archives endorsed the regime’s ideology; those of 1964 were anarchival. Archives are often regarded as officially produced documents which uphold hegemonic narratives and norms; anarchivism integrates archives into subjective and collective experiences. The archives of the Lope de Vega’s Julius Caesar reveal an anarchival dimension which positively impacted Mérida’s socio-political life. Keywords Archive· Anarchive· Space· Time· Audience· Events Introduction I will tackle the first Shakespeare produced at the Roman theater of Mérida (Badajoz, Spain). In 1955, José Tamayo—head of the Lope de Vega Theater Company, then based at the Teatro Español (Madrid)—mounted Julius Caesar at this Roman site. José María Pemán wrote a free version of Shakespeare’s tragedy in verse by blending its five acts into three parts. Parts one and two—for staging at * Víctor Huertas-Martín [email protected] 1 Department de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya, Facultat de Filologia, Traducció i Comunicació, Universitat de València, Avinguda Blasco Ibáñez 32, 46010Valencia, Spain 68 V. Huertas-Martín the theater—comprised scenes 1.1–2.1 and scenes 2.2–3.2. Part three—for the amphiheater—condensed acts four and five.1 Pemán affirmed to have used prestigious Spanish translations of Julius Caesar as models (1955, p. 7), but his version was tailored to fit the government’s national Catholic agenda. Additionally, Pemán adjusted the play to the site (Ibid., p. 5.). That site suited the company’s style, known as “Teatroscope,” aka “Tamayoscope”—a tag which compared Tamayo’s spectacles and Cecil B. Demille’s films (Checa Puerta, 2020, para. 2)—. Tamayoscope used open-air spaces, large casts of extras and stars, prestigious creatives—e.g. Siegfried Burmann, Richard Klatovski, Emilio Burgos—, massive sets, live music, bold lighting, and daring mass choreographies. In Julius Caesar, the theater’s frons scaenae blended the grandeurs of architectonic sets and epic film; the amphitheater—300 meters away from the theater—was used for battle scenes where 500 foot soldiers and fighters on horseback could run and ride. Tamayoscope attracted bourgeois and working-class audiences, offered affordable entertainment, and enlivened the Spanish theater industry under Franco (Ruiz García, 1971; Sánchez Perlado, 2004; Monleón, 2003, 2008, 2014). Julius Caesar returned to Mérida in 1964 as part of the Festivals of Spain, the 25 Years of Peace,2 and Shakespeare’s Quatercentenary. This extravagance contrasted with the daily repression suffered by the population. Ultimately, Julius Caesar contributed to challenge that repression. Critics of the Lope de Vega’s Julius Caesar assume that the production merely served the interests of official propaganda. However, this production is a milestone in the theatrical history of Mérida (see Sánchez Matas, 1991; Monleón, 2008). I will reconsider Tamayo’s Julius Caesar by examining its 1955 and 1964 archives. The former, produced by creatives, endorsed the regime’s ideology. The latter— best described as anarchival—show that popular participation had a longer-lasting impact. Archives are regarded as sets of officially produced documents, custodied by guardians of official narratives and norms; anarchivism–using Andrés Maximiliano Tello’s terminology–is generated as subjective and collective alternatives to archival norms. The anarchival features of Julius Caesar made it dialogue with Mérida’s historical memory. The results reveal a link between the archives of Julius Caesar and the medial relations that articulate them. Context After centuries of oblivion, Mérida’s theatrical life resurrected amidst Spanish twentieth-century political struggles. Shortly after archaeologists José Ramón Mélida and Maximiliano Macías disinterred the city’s ruins in the 1910s, performances restarted with a school production of Plautus’s The Captives (1922) (Álvarez Amaro, 2022; Monleón, 2008; Sánchez Matas, 1991). Margarita Xirgu’s Medea (1933) would have initiated a sustained theatrical engagement led by the Republican government, but on 10 August 1936 Mérida was taken by the nationalists during the 1 For Shakespeare’s source text, see Mowat and Werstine’s edition of Julius Caesar. 2 On this celebration, see Castro and Díaz (2017). 69 Archivism and Anarchivism in Julius Caesar Civil War. The new government’s commemorations for their dead (López Díaz, 2018, pp. 473–474) were staged together with acts to reaffirm fascist power in the theater (Balaskas, 2022a, b, p. 124–127). In 1939, Teatro Universitario Español restarted Mérida’s performances after the war. Tamayo teamed with Pemán to produce Oedipus (1954), a critical and a popular success. On April 3, 1955, the Diputation of Badajoz agreed to Tamayo’s proposal to bring Julius Caesar to Mérida in June (Anonymous, 1955a, b, c). Under Francoism, Julius Caesar was a risky choice. In Mussolini’s Italy, the possibility that the play could incite rebellion prevented its staging (Fortunato, 2018, p. 196). In Francoist Spain, the performance space would matter more than political content (Gregor, 2006, pp. 206–207); the little room to maneuver left to directors made an innocuous classic of Shakespeare (Cerdá, 2018, p. 30); the writer’s association with the Spanish Golden Age safeguarded it from censorship (Portillo and Lara, 1994, p. 210). But neither the performance database La recepción de las obras de Shakespeare en la cultura española y europea (University of Murcia) nor other catalogues have any recordings of Spanish productions of Julius Caesar before Francoism. Indeed, Pemán affirmed that that was the first Julius Caesar ever staged in Spain (Ramírez, 1955, para. 2). J. Andrés de Prada’s version—approved by censors on 30 August 19463 for staging by the López Llander Company at the Teatro Calderón de La Rambla de Catalunya—may have, nonetheless, preceded it. Prada’s script possibly inspired Pemán’s three-act structure, the erasure of Cinna the poet, and the fascist elements in the script. However, Prada’s unsubtle fascist gestures had become unfashionable by the late 1940s,4 when Spain wanted to be involved in European affairs (Sánchez Matas, p. 105). From the 1930s through the 1950s, worldwide Julius Caesars had been critiquing fascism (Goy-Blanquet, 2009, pp. 129–130; Hartley, 2014, pp. 36–80). Shakespeare’s tragedy was, thus, flammable material that the Lope de Vega needed to handle carefully. The company achieved this and, meanwhile, revived Mérida’s theatrical culture. Fittingly, they had adopted “a conservative national Catholic character that dealt with themes of power and control” (Balaskas, 2022a, b, p. 157). For Pemán, the problem with Julius Caesar was the absence of an identifiable hero (1955, p. 6; Díaz Santillana, 1955a, b, c, para. 13). This did not suit the Francoist theater orthodoxy, which privileged exceptional protagonists (Oliva, 1989, p. 13). Pemán emendated this by expanding scenes leading to Caesar’s assassination and reduced those that followed (1955, p. 6). The rest was done, as will be shown, through textual license. Meanwhile, Tamayo turned Julius Caesar into a tourism pack by engaging businesses, institutions, and media to publicize what was marketed as a special event (Sánchez Matas, p. 11; Díaz Santillana, 1955a). A public reading of Pemán’s text at the site garnered support from the press and the authorities (Anonymous, 1955a; Pinilla, 1955a, b). Further excitement was created with preparatory conferences 3 Resolution available at Archivo General de la Administración, Signature AGA, 73, 08723, AGA 26, Sixth Box. 4 The script’s stage directions indicate risings of arms and long lives to Rome absent from Shakespeare, which may be evocative of fascist parades (Prada, 1946). 70 V. Huertas-Martín at Mérida’s Lyceum (Anonymous, 1955b; S., 1955). The local citizens wanted to be extras in the show (Caballero, 2014). Indeed, audience numbers—25,000 spectators—and bar sales were outstanding that summer in Mérida (Díaz Santillana, 1955b).5 Programmed from June 18 to 21, Julius Caesar run from the 19 to the 24. Critical Reception andState oftheArt Critical reactions have remained divided until today. Reviewers praised sets, wardrobe, score, text, actors, extras, attendance, applause, cheers, and the site (Anonymous, 1955c; C., 1955; Marqueríe, 1955; Pinilla, 1955a). Cursory remarks were made on artistic license with the text, excess spectacle, and lack of intelligibility (Baviano Giner, 1955; Gazul, 1955). Antonio Mingote caricatured audience enthrallment at horses and extras parading around the stage while an orator futilely tried to make him/herself heard by actors, participants, and audiences (ABC, 23 June 1955, p. 57). Others saw future opportunities in Tamayoscope. For María Ontiveros, the cinema satisfied the audiences because it put within reach of their imagination and sight what the stage could not (1955, p. 16). When Julius Caesar returned in 1964, reviews centered on audience numbers—2500–3000 spectators—and celebrities attending the show (Díaz Santillana, 1964; Pinilla, 1964). Perhaps due to the decline in attendance numbers, the revival was not regarded as significant. Perhaps the reason why Julius Caesar was revived at all, as suggested in Balaskas, was that the London National Theatre’s declined to visit Mérida in 1964 (2022, p. 205). Years later, José Sánchez Matas said that Julius Caesar secured the Festival’s future at the expense of quality (1991, pp. 113–117). José Monleón praised Tamayo’s audacity but criticized the production’s shallow presentation of political conflict (2008, pp. 97–100). Peripheral Francoist festivals exhibited mediocre spectacles tinged by repression, self-censorship, and institutional puritanism (Balaskas, 2022a, p. 80). Unsurprisingly, post-Francoist critics interpreted Julius Caesar in that key. Though Shakespearean scholarship has addressed regional Spanish Shakespeares (Campillo Arnaiz, 2022; González Fernández de Sevilla, 1993; Martínez Velasco, 1993; Mendiguren Bereziartu, 1993; Alonso & González, 1993), Mérida’s Shakespeares have only been examined tangentially (Bandín Fuertes, 2011; Cerdá, 2018; González, 2012; Huertas-Martín, 2019, 2023). Criticism on Spanish Festival Shakespeares focuses on the International Classical Theater Festival of Almagro (Guerrero, 2017, 2022), a more evident fit for Festival Shakespeares. One reason for this critical gap is that Mérida is a Graeco-Latin Festival, but politics can also provide an explanation. European Festivals developed in step with postwar democratic revolutions and welfare states (Prescott etal., 2022). For many, a festival is “one of the most pleasurable forms of civic engagement and collaborative creativity they experience during their lifetimes” (Prescott, 2021, p. 51). This ethos is compromised under dictatorships. However, festivalizing Shakespeare has re-signified areas originally 5 An invoice shows that bar sales ranged from 2450 to 4000 pesetas per night. Archives of the Festival of Mérida. 71 Archivism and Anarchivism in Julius Caesar employed for fascist celebrations (Calvi & Pennacchia, 2022, p. 121) and, under dictatorships, Festival Shakespeares have been both propagandistic and emancipatory (Krajník & Kyselová, 2022, p. 59). Archives show that our Julius Caesar was similarly ambivalent. Methodology In Anarchivismo (Tecnologías políticas del archivo), Tello argues that official archives establish myths, erase unwelcome traces from the past, subsume individuals and tradition under teleology and authoritarianism (2018, pp. 22–27). He favors an anarchival alternative: a heterogeneous set of social relations and tensions that challenge established social practices of naturalization of hierarchies and classifications and that archives are open to ruptures or expansions (Ibid, p. 27). If archives are, thus, captured under anarchivism, their authoritarian principles collapse (Ibid, pp. 132–133). Therefore, anarchivism may transform perceptions of the past by resorting to memory, which stores the nucleus of what happened and is remade through aggregates, elaborations and distortions (p. 175). It favors encounters with specters, entanglements with alterity and re-orderings of human experience which do not necessarily bring social justice but create the conditions for its possibility (pp. 205–207). It is realized if it involves active processes of collective and individual subjectivization (pp. 268, 272–273). Our methodology is completed with Isabel Guerrero’s festival constituents: space, time, audience and events. Festival spaces have ideological meanings and connotations associated with architectonic features and their functions (2023, p. 46). Festival time expands notions of regular time insofar as its meanings extend beyond the time a performance lasts (Ibid. 59). Festival time merges the ordinary and the extraordinary in environments that alter real time (p. 68). Seen as necessarily active (p. 71), festival audiences form cultural communities defined in opposition to daily social structures (p. 79). Gatherings of events may lead to the festival city’s transformation and encourage participants and inhabitants to identify with each other and with the festival (p. 89). These gatherings encourage participants to produce their own readings and reach their own conclusions on the festival experience (p. 90). These factors may lead to transformative outcomes, also, I suggest, in the context of the Lope de Vega’s Julius Caesar. Archives of1955 In 1955, Franco’s speech published in Hoy (May 17), said that the current generations [have] received a catastrophic inheritance of misery, of ancient abandonment and ruins, a background of moral prostration and such profound distress, that the National Uprising and [its] Crusade [has been] morally and materially necessary to change the fate of that Spain that was sinking, to set it on the path of its resurgence and progress. (p. 1) 72 V. Huertas-Martín The media marketing Julius Caesar used history selectively to support the Francoist view. A newsreel program, “Teatro Clásico” (Revista Imágenes, 1955), paired Julius Caesar with a staging of La Celestina (Dir. Salvador Salazar, 1955) at the Plaza Santa María in Cáceres, where Franco was proclaimed Leader of Spain, Chief of State and Generalissimo of the Three Armies in September 1936. Shakespeare’s association with a Spanish classic was the underlying support for its staging in Mérida and stitched it to the victory of 1939. The production program described Mérida’s resurfacing through imperial vestiges, economic growth and the energy of “the dignified sons of a world-conquering race” (1955). Much was made of the site as a natural fit for Julius Caesar. Shakespeare would have, so it was said, chosen it before the Globe to stage the tragedy (Ibid.). By labelling Julius Caesar as a “historical chronicle” (Ibid.) the program brought together Octavian’s victory at Philippi and Mérida’s foundation. It described the play as an episode “repeated whenever the heroes of yesterday [become] an obstacle for the heroes of tomorrow” (Ibid.), suggesting a link with the nationalist cause. Audiences were expected to endorse this narrative, which was disseminated through the production. References to space in the play-text suggest the outlook of a performance involving the theater and the city. References to Augustan iconograhy underlined continuities between the play and Mérida’s history. In Calpurnia’s prediction of Caesar’s death (JC 2.2.13-26), Pemán inserted references to Diane’s Temple—“Se abrió sola la puerta / del templo de Diana [It was on its own open, the door / To the Temple of Diane]” (1955a, p. 68)—. This Temple was Mérida’s forum and its façades dedicated to Augustus (Macías Liáñez [1913] 2008, p. 25). Shakespeare’s reference to Pompey’s statue was maintained, but Caesar died at the feet of a bust of Augustus at the frons scaenae. The amphitheater, built to celebrate Augustus’ tribunitia potestate (8 ACE) (Macías Liáñez, pp. 110–111), was used for staging Octavian’s victory. References to the theater’s terraces, entries, and steps suggested uses of the frons scaenae, the valva regia, and the valvae hospitales. Interpolations, inserted taking advantage of the dimensions of the stage, were politically loaded: choruses praised Caesar’s victories (Pemán, 1955a, pp. 19, 76–77) and foresaw the conspirators’ defeat by Octavian (Ibid., pp. 149–150). The Augustan and the national victories were interwoven in text and performance. Pemán used the space to inject right-wing populism into the play. Taking advantage of the large frons scaenae, he delayed the encounter between the plebs and Caesar in scene one. An initial distance between Caesar and the plebs ended with an outburst of mutual affection center stage (Ibid., pp. 17–19). This move suited Pemán’s ideal of an “organic democracy,” described as the non-imposed and natural people’s acceptance of totalitarian leadership (Álvarez Chillida, 1991, p. 287). Pemán’s sexism was also served with lines added for Portia, played by Mary Carrillo. She welcomed Caius Ligarius and later voluntarily stepped away so that Brutus—played by Guillermo Marín—could take on leadership. This corresponded to Pemán’s view that men were the action-takers and that women, their firm domestic support, should accept their husbands’ precedence in the public sphere (Ibid., p. 197). Pemán’s third part established parallels between Philippi and the victory of 1939. The central platform at the amphitheater allowed Brutus and Cassius to declaim while Antony and his soldiers descended from the caveas (Revista Imágenes). 73 Archivism and Anarchivism in Julius Caesar Horsemen rode across the fossa arenaria around the platform, besieging Brutus and Cassius (Ibid.). Pemán underlined Brutus’s despair at being “combatidos por furias y por vientos [besieged by furies and winds]” (Pemán, 1955a, p. 135) and the two friends’ struggles to “por aliviar dos almas que están llenas / de dudas y zozobras [alleviate two souls filled / With doubt and hesitation]” (Ibid., p. 136). This configuration brought together dramaturgy, space and ideology. Running against Shakespeare’s grain, Pemán made the losers cowardly or incapable: Strato came on stage blinded; his killing of Brutus was clumsy, comical (Revista Imágenes); Cassius and Messala mistook each another for Antony and started fighting (Pemán, 1955a, pp. 155–156); Brutus’ standard-bearers and soldiers deserted him (Ibid., pp. 156, 159–161). Pemán excised parts that provided balance to both sides, for instance, by taking Young Cato and Lucilius out. Rather than to Brutus’s audacity, the defeat was attributed to divine punishment. Caesar’s Ghost, turned into Caesar’s Shadow, oversaw the battle “like an apparition of the Virgin of Fátima” (Cienfuegos Linares, 1983, p. 10), thus reinforcing the winners’ viewpoint. Meanwhile, a Chorus regretted the injustice of Caesar’s death and also regretted the victors’ mission to restore harmony (Pemán, 1955a, p. 156). This piousness was embodied in Mark Antony—played by Francisco Rabal—as he counter-manded Octavian’s order to behead Brutus: No, Octavio… Que le rindan honores de soldado. (…) El creyó hacer justicia. Mas ¿qué es justicia, Octavio? Los postreros honores se merece. Tendrá su sepultura. (…) porque él fue una batalla de engaños y virtudes, solamente añadid: “Este era un hombre”. [No, Octavian… Let him receive the honors of a soldier. […] He believed that he was doing justice. But what is justice, Octavian? These late Honors he deserves. He will receive burial. […] Since inside him was a battle of deceit and virtue, Add only: “This was a man.”] (Ibid., p. 164; emphases mine) In Shakespeare’s play (5.5.74–82), Antony describes Brutus’s gentleness and completeness; Pemán’s Brutus was a “batalla de engaños y virtudes,” honest but mistaken, bereft of lucidity. Pemán had expressed, in private correspondence with Manuel de Falla, concerns about those who “only under deceit acted criminally or went astray” and joined the Republicans (Pemán, 1988, p. 66).6 Some Republicans, as the official propaganda went, were honest but deceived; the other thousands were underserving. 6 All translations from Spanish sources mine. 74 V. Huertas-Martín Julius Caesar was complicit with Francoism in several other ways. Following Andrew J. Hartley, the killing of Cinna is often cut in Anglophone productions since it can take focus away “from the production’s brand of idealized history” (2014, p. 23). In Spain, the killing of Cinna would have exposed the mass of adorers of Caesar as irrational. It might have suggested parallels between the murdered poet and the assassinated Federico García Lorca, with whom Pemán had been friends (Álvarez Chillida, 1991, p. 81; Ezguíbar Galarza, 2010, p. 135). However, Francoist Mérida was complicit with the erasure of Republican names from the Festival’s memory (Sánchez Matas, p. 110). This may explain why cast members tended to erase Julius Caesar afterwards. In an interview on her Shakespearean career, Núria Espert did not mention her participation in Julius Caesar (1993). In 2014, she admitted not enjoying the experience, only recalling having posed to take pictures at the stones (p. 21). In 1959, she returned to Mérida with her own staging of Medea—with Juan Germán Schroeder’s recasting of Euripides and Seneca’s versions—, the tragedy with which Xirgu had re-started Mérida’s theatrical activity. In “Ante ‘mi’ Medea en Mérida,” Espert declared her intention “to engage all that [was] regarded as the tradition and the culture of Mérida’s enclosure in the world’s theater […] to maintain the continuity with what [was] to come” (1959, p. 3). Tamayo and Pemán had been complicit with the erasure of Mérida’s past; Espert’s resolution to exhume history would eventually make Tamayo’s enterprise irrelevant. Juan Miguel Tévar associates Tamayoscope with an engagement with the people’s eagerness for culture and theater (2012, p. 52). But the 1955 archives invite skepticism on audience participation. It seems that all that was achieved was that the extras had a good time. Commendable as that may be, it should be noted that they were also made part of a regime’s fantasy. Creatives drew features from Joseph Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar—premièred in Spain on February 7, 1955—to market the play. Rabal’s choice for Antony may have been inspired by Marlon Brando’s; the amphitheater’s Philippi scenes, by Mankiewicz’s Philippi scenes. But the epic tone of Tamayo’s Philippi aligned with that of the Spanish epic films of the 1950s, designed to legitimize the victors of 1939 (Benet, 2012, pp. 218–238). Tamayoscope was more ideologically influenced by Holy Rome than by Mankiewicz. Shakespeare does not conform to Holy Rome (Jackson, 2009, p. 156), but Revista Imágenes ensured that it appeared to: male extras and spectators cried at Caesar’s mangled body while diegetic music evoked religious films. Backstage scenes showed male extras and stars rubbing shoulders, all following Tamayo and Pemán’s instructions, similarly to the way riders, as the voiceover asserted, retired “following the orders of their commanders.” This phallocratic dreamscape excluded women, though an attempt had been made to attract female audiences with the casting of Rabal. Archives show that this production was only eventful within the limits of “organic democracy.” Archives of1964 From June 16 to 19, 1964, Julius Caesar returned to the Roman theater to reaffirm the victors’ view. Festival historians, critics, and archivists did not thoroughly document the revival. This disinterest may be due to changing consumer habits in the 75 Archivism and Anarchivism in Julius Caesar 1960s. The population had a wider choice of entertainment in coastal areas.7 The way in which Julius Caesar was staged in Europe also had a part to play in the disinterest. The Italian European equivalents of Tamayoscope were mocked in screen appropriations of Julius Caesar (Tempera, 2013, pp. 333–335). British Julius Caesars moved away from archaeological stagings towards experimental takes (Hartley, p. 95). The Lope de Vega had established Julius Caesar in the Spanish theater, but more daring productions would come during the 1960s and 1970s (see Gregor, 2006). Mérida’s revival challenged the regime’s authoritarianism in some respects. Little attention was paid to Pemán’s translation in prose. While 4000 copies of Pemán’s first version had been circulated,8 the second text was not even published. In the program, Pemán argued that his prose translation offered Julius Caesar in a faithful, direct, and clear manner (1964). His previous version, he said, left out some details, insinuations, and chiaroscuros of the play (Ibid.). According to Sánchez Matas, the second text was the same or similar to the first one (p. 124). In reality, the second version followed Shakespeare more closely, but Pemán kept the three-act structure and some of his previous licenses. Some of these were remade to indicate his distancing himself from Francoism. The scene that prolonged Caesar’s entry was more ominous, fewer plebeians were present, a deadlier environment was suggested than in the 1955 version. Caesar’s first word to the few plebeians present was: “¡Silencio! [Silence!]” (1964a, p. 4). The warmth between the dictator and the crowds had given way to detachment. The Philippi scenes subtly challenged the regime’s war narrative. Pemán remarked in stage directions that licenses were introduced for stageability (1964a, pp. 15, 21–26). However, his propagandistic changes—e.g. Strato’s blindness, Brutus’s servants’ retreat, etc.—and cuts—Young Cato remained absent–, simply, as in 1955, favored the Francoist view. He did restore Titinius’s mourning for Cassius, which had been eliminated from the old version, granting to the losing side the mourning they deserved (Ibid., p. 26). He restored Lucilius, who was given extra lines to pay homage to Brutus’s corpse (Ibid., p. 32). At least one Republican showed loyalty and had the chance to bury their dead. Antony and Lucilius’s complicity exposed Octavian’s unnecessary brutality, relatable to the postwar Francoist repression. Years later, Pemán would confess having Hamlet-like used his writing to strike against the dictator’s conscience as he admitted having observed Franco’s reactions during Antigone (Dir. Cayetano Luca de Tena, 1946), while invectives were pronounced against the tyrant Creon for refusing burial to the dead (1976, pp. 69–70). Pemán may as well have been trying to appease his troubled conscience, for he supported the nationalists at war and was part of the regime’s repressive cultural apparatus. Tamayo’s Julius Caesar remains, as mentioned, a milestone in the theatrical history of Mérida. So much so that current productions are measured against 7 Monleón asked whether indeed open-air theater served any purpose at all (1964, p. 44). 8 The printing was authorized on August 12, 1955. See resolution in Archivo General de la Administración, Signature AGA, 21, 11162, AGA 26, First Box. 82 V. Huertas-Martín Mendiguren Bereziartu, X. (1993). William Shakespeare en euskera. 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