Lavapiés - diverse, multicultural, and one of Madrid's most iconic
neighbourhoods - has emerged as a locus of resistance movements and of
cultural flourishing. Poised at the intersection of theatre studies and
cultural geography, this innovative study sketches its physical and
imaginary contours.In From the Theater to the Plaza Matthew Feinberg
guides readers on a journey through the development of the theatre, as
both art and space, in Lavapiés. Offering a detailed analysis of
dramatic texts and productions, performance spaces, urban planning
documents, and the cultural activities of squatters, Feinberg sheds new
light on the lead-up to Spain's economic crisis and the emergence in
2011 of the 15-M anti-austerity protest movement. The result is a
multidisciplinary account of how the spectacle of the contemporary city
connects local, municipal, and global geographies.By linking the
neighbourhood's unique role as both a site and a subject of Madrid's
theatre tradition with its contemporary struggles over gentrification,
From the Theater to the Plaza offers new approaches for understanding
how culture and capital produce the twenty-first-century city.