Post-Civil War Theatre

Unsurprisingly, theatre of agitation propaganda does not exist to any great extent in the post-war Francoist period. The successful establishment of the New State, and its longevity, ensured that the audience for agit-prop theatre was reduced, if not entirely eliminated. Many of those who had been at the forefront of the theatre of agitation movement were dead, imprisoned or exiled in the aftermath of the Nationalist victory. Those who remained were unwilling or unable to mount a similar challenge to the new regime. Not only that, but in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, as London notes, the theatre played a role in the legitimation of the regime:

Forging a New State included the task of creating a new culture to reflect and reinforce the dominant ideology. In fact, it was with considerable zeal that the regime set about imposing its own ideology and eliminating alternatives. Both Carlos Rodríguez Sanz and José María de Quinto assert that the Spanish culture promoted by the Nationalist regime was noteworthy for what it chose to ignore or censor, as much as for what it promoted. Thus, initially, the censors concerned themselves more with the revivals of certain dramas from the pre-war period than with anything new and revolutionary. They did so effectively, and the works of Republican writers were eliminated from the Spanish stage. Reflecting upon the creation of a new culture for a New State, José María de Quinto remarked: