Manuel lives in a small rural village. Over the years, the population has declined, and neither his friends nor his passion for the lovely Maria are enough to keep him from packing his bags. And so, as Agony begins, Manuel decides to move to Madrid. He is leaving Maria behind, but promises to return for her one day.
Some time passes, and Manuel does indeed return to the village. But he has not come back for Maria. Rather, he has returned to attend his father’s funeral. Almost immediately, Manuel is sucked back into rural life, as he joins the ragtag collection of villagers in a very theatrical funeral procession. In fact, recently, the villagers have had theatre on the brain. Holy Week is approaching and the Mayor wants to reinstate a long-forgotten tradition. The villagers are going to stage a Passion play which will, the Mayor hopes, reinforce social bonds and breathe fresh life into the dying rural community.
While still in the village, Manuel spies Maria sneaking into the local bar and dance hall. He follows her inside. The dance hall is in the process of being converted into a makeshift theatre, complete with a rudimentary stage and curtain. Eventually, from behind this curtain, Maria appears. Maria feels abandoned by Manuel, and asks him pointedly about the girls in Madrid. But Manuel is undaunted by her coldness. He grabs Maria and kisses her, until she bites him and runs away.
The Mayor, who is also Manuel’s uncle, joins his nephew in the dance hall. He wants to talk to Manuel about the Passion play and asks him to accept the part of Christ. But performing in an amateur rural production is the last thing on Manuel’s mind. He refuses to believe his uncle can revive a dying community with such a project. An argument ensues – an argument between tradition and change; between old and young. Manuel insists he will be leaving as soon as possible, never to return.
The rest of the people in the village throw themselves into preparing for the Passion play. Manuel’s friend Palomo has been cast as Jesus. He is reluctant to be the star of the show, not least because it takes him away from performing at the side of the beautiful Agustina, as shepherd to her shepherdess. Nevertheless, as the villagers begin their first rehearsal, Palomo makes a convincing Jesus. The characters re-enact Christ’s humiliating procession through Jerusalem and Palomo is finally lifted to the cross. At this point, the young man is overcome with the wrong kind of passion. Instead of calling out to God, Palomo declares his love for Agustina. At this, the entire cast erupts with laughter.
After the disaster of the first rehearsal, Maria goes to find Manuel. He is waiting for the bus. This time, he asks Maria to go with him. The pair reconcile and kiss, and it seems that they will both be leaving the village. Suddenly, however, heavy snow starts to fall. There will be no bus in this weather, and so Manuel is forced to remain a little longer. Seso, one of the oldest villagers, remembers the last time such heavy snow fell. Crops failed and many people died. Seso claims that the fatal snowfall was sent as a punishment, because that year the village did not perform the Passion play. Now, Seso fears that the snow is falling once again because the Passion play is being mocked: the wrong person is playing Jesus and the rehearsals are faltering. Most people ignore old Seso, but the Mayor shares his fears for the village. Sheltering from the snow inside the hall, the Mayor insists that it is a matter of life and death that Manuel play the part of Jesus. Eventually, Manuel agrees, but only for Maria’s sake. She is a village girl at heart, and Manuel wants to share in the last act of village life in which she will take part, before he takes her away to the city forever.
With Manuel as Jesus, preparations for the play go well. But there is one figure who objects to the entire endeavour – the local priest. The Priest and the Mayor have argued before over the production, with the Priest demanding royalties because of the play’s religious theme. The Mayor argues that the village needs the play just as much as it needs the harvest itself if it is to survive as a community. But the Priest believes that something much more sinister is required in order to secure the survival of the village: there must be a sacrifice.
The day of the performance arrives. To an audience of only three, the Passion play begins. After his unsuccessful attempt at portraying Jesus, Palomo has been recast as a Roman soldier. But he is not just any Roman soldier. Rather, he plays the role of the soldier who pierced Jesus in his side to ensure that he was dead. And so, as the performance reaches its climax and Manuel is raised to the cross, Palomo stabs him. After a long, silent agony, Manuel dies. Maria is horrified. Everyone else, however, considers the play to have been a great success. Old Seso remarks that they killed the father, and now they have killed the son. In the end, then, we are left to wonder whether Manuel was lured back to the village deliberately, purely to perform this agonising sacrifice. (less)
Manuel lives in a small rural village. Over the years, the population has declined, and neither his friends nor his passion for the lovely Maria are enough to keep him from packing his ... (Read more...)
The villagers stage a Passion play. Such performances are typically staged during Holy Week. Probably the most famous Passion play takes place once every ten years in the village of Oberammergau, Germany. (less)
The villagers stage a Passion play. Such performances are typically staged during Holy Week. Probably the most famous Passion play takes place once every ten years in the village of Obe... (Read more...)
Agony was awarded the Calderón de la Barca prize in 1995. It has been studied from the perspective of what it has to say about rural life and about the tension between the desires of the individual and the needs of the community (see Leonard 1999). As a highly metatheatrical piece, the play explores the ‘agony’ of making theatre, and the playwright admits he deliberately stepped out of his comfort zone to produce a play in the esperpento tradition. In order to do so, González immersed himself in rural Spanish culture, attending country fairs and carnivals to gain an understanding of the traditions of rural communities (Monleón 1996). As a dramatisation of the importance of theatre and pageantry to village life, then, the play has been studied as a comment on theatre’s role in society (see Leonard 1998).
Leonard, Candyce. 1998. ‘Agonía and Sueños de Ginebra: Spanish Alternative Theatre at the End of the Twentieth Century’, Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea, 23.3, 733-49
Leonard, Candyce. 1999. ‘Agonía: A Parable of Violence and Sacrifice on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century’. In Entre Actos: Diálogos sobre teatro español entre siglos, eds. Martha T. Hasley and Phyllis Zatlin, pp. 165-71. University Park PA, Estreno
Monleón, Ángela. 1996. ‘Luis Miguel González Cruz: “Necesito leer y escribir para vivir de verdad” ’, Primer acto, 263, http://parnaseo.uv.es/Ars/Autores/Gonzalez/entrevistas/entrevista1.htm [accessed April 2011] (Online Publication) (in Spanish)
(less) Agony was awarded the Calderón de la Barca prize in 1995. It has been studied from the perspective of what it has to say about rural life and about the tension between the desires of t... (Read more...)
