Censoring the Outsider: The Theatre of Albert Camus in Franco’s Spain

Abstract

This article analyses the significance and reception of Albert Camus’s theatre in Spain under the Franco dictatorship (1939–75), which differed from that in France and elsewhere. The state censorship files at the Archivo General de la Administración in Alcalá de Henares reveal how performances of Camus’s theatre were considered rallying points of opposition to the dictatorship and yet were often tolerated. An analysis of this contradiction helps us not only to fill a gap in Spanish theatre history, which generally focuses little on foreign drama, but also to throw light both on the use of foreign drama as a form of protest and on the transnational legacy of Camus’s theatre.