Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta and the European Political Theater Tradition

In 1967 Pablo Neruda wrote his only play, Fulgor y muerte de Joaquín Murieta , which recreated the popular legend of the Chilean emigrant in “gold rush” California, who ended up becoming a bandit, pursued, and killed by the rangers. With the data collected during his trip to the United States, Neruda wrote his piece with the collaboration of the director Pedro Orthous, a member of the Chilean National Theater and one of the best representatives of political theater in Latin America. Both in the staging and in the text, the influence of Bertolt Brecht, whose work began to be known throughout the world, is discernible, but also that of the political theater written in Spain before and during the Civil War, especially of Fermín Galán , the drama of another communist poet friend of Neruda, Rafael Alberti.