Reus is recalling Federico García Lorca’s 1935 visit to the city as the 90th anniversary of the poet and playwright’s killing is marked in 2026. For local theatre-goers, the anniversary reconnects the Teatre Fortuny and Teatre Bartrina with productions staged during Lorca’s lifetime, and with a dramatic tradition that has continued to programme his work.

Lorca attended a performance of Yerma at Reus’s Teatre Fortuny in October 1935, alongside the Catalan actor Margarida Xirgu, according to archival reporting on the visit. He addressed an enthusiastic audience after the production.

Lorca and Xirgu brought Yerma to the Fortuny

Xirgu, born in 1888 and died in 1969, was making her third appearance on Reus stages. She had previously performed at the Teatre Circ in 1912 and returned to the city in 1932.

The October 1935 production placed Reus on the route of the artistic partnership between Lorca and Xirgu, who had begun working together in the late 1920s. A signature by Xirgu remains recorded in the visitors’ book of the Centre de Lectura de Reus, the city’s cultural association and library.

Reus had already staged Lorca’s Bodas de sangre at the Teatre Bartrina in 1934, in a production organised by the Amics del Teatre audience association. Xavier Amorós wrote in a 1992 column that copies of Lorca’s Romancero gitano sold in dozens at the Llibreria Nacional i Extranjera in Reus.

The connection remains visible in Reus programming

Lorca’s work has continued to appear on Reus stages decades after his death. In 2018, the Teatre Fortuny scheduled Bodas de sangre, while the Teatre Bartrina presented a Pep Tosar show on Lorca’s landscapes on 7 April.

A separate Teatre Fortuny listing also advertised Yerma for Tuesday 8 April at 8.30pm. The 1934 play is described in that listing as a rural tragedy centred on Yerma.

Lorca was detained on 16 August 1936 at the Granada home of the Rosales family, where he had sought refuge, according to reporting based on a 1965 Granada police report and accounts cited by Lorca researchers. He was killed two days later, in the first days of the Spanish Civil War.

Residents seeking the places linked to Lorca’s Reus visit can identify the Teatre Fortuny, where Yerma was staged in October 1935, and the Teatre Bartrina, which hosted Bodas de sangre the previous year.

Primary sources: cugat.cat. Reported by reusdigital.cat, Diego Barcala, José Rodríguez Sojo, universolorca.com, ximogorriz.