The story of the International Brigades, the foreign volunteers who fought against the forces of fascism in the Spanish Civil War , is one of the more noble, if tragic chapters of that terrible conflict.
The majority of these volunteers , from a variety of national backgrounds including the UK,were motivated by a simple spirit of solidarity, and the belief that Franco’s military uprising against the democratically-elected Spanish Popular Front government, backed as it was by Mussolini and Hitler, represented a defining ideological battleground that would define the future of Europe.
While David Cameron set out to drive a coach and horses through any basic concept of the common good by predicating national sovereignty on the basis of the deregulation of the City, I took some friends to see Goodbye Barcelona, a musical based around the character of Sam young Jewish kid from east London who joins the International Brigades after fighting against Mosley’s black shirts in Cable Street. And what a moving and worthwhile evening it proved.
The small studio of the Arcola Theatre in north-east London, which allows you to drink your wine as you watch, provides a perfect intimate setting for engagement with a story-line that takes our imagination across some of the great landmarks of the Spanish Civil War- Orwell’s Barcelona, Brunete, Jarama, the Ebro and then finally Franco’s victory-in the steps of Sam and his comrades in arms. Along the way, Sam falls in love with a young Spaniard called Pilar, while his beloved young widowed mother (the best sung and acted role by Lucy Bradshaw), follows her own romantic and ideological journey in the company of a fugitive anarchist after volunteering as a nurse.
The two love affairs are genuinely touching. And there are some stirring collective moments as when the cast sing lines from the The Internationale , and the Basque communist firebrand La Pasionaria delivers a stage version of her famous ‘No pasaran’ speech – Evita-style. , I thought. Thankfully neither the songs nor the linking script descend into Lloyd-Webber pastiche nor agitprop. This intelligent musical (music and lyrics by KS Lewkowicz, book by Judith Johnson ) does pay more than lip service to the ideological complexities and military deficiencies that turned the experience many volunteers like Sam had of Spain into a tragedy. Only on two key point does book-writer Johnson fail us. Untouched are the the question of whether International Brigades presence prolonged a Civil War without in the end contributing to saving the Republic, and whether La Pasionaria –played sympathetically here- was really a bloody fanatic responsible for the deaths in vain of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners.
Nevertheless Sam’s political gullibility is constantly teased by a fellow-soldier- a veteran of the First World war- who has seen enough of the brutality of human conflict already to idealise it. One of several excellent songs skilfully mocks the various divisions of the left that Orwell so brilliantly depicts in his Homage to Catalonia, while several other scenes underline how poorly equipped, and underfed were those who took up arms against Franco.
The title song , sung towards the end , is one of the best and most moving sang as it by the full cast as they bid farewell to the revolution that failed-almost as good as the Internationale, still in my view, together with Jerusalem, one of the most inspiring human hymns ever scripted.
“Arise ye workers from your slumbers, arise you prisoners of want….”- and go to the Arcola and get inspired. It’s on until December 23rd so give a friend or a loved one a Christmas treat. It’s great fringe. With some development finance , Goodbye Barcelona deserves to tour, and even return to some more permanent base in London .
Not taking issue with anything in relation to what must be a wonderful musical, your comments trigger off a series of questions & comments. Living in Spain for over 20 years I am struck at the polarity that still exists deep in the psyche of many here. The International Brigade has for so long been portrayed outside Spain as a romantic, noble, tragic group of young men & women who fought the evils of fascism, a curtain raiser to what would eventually befall the rest of Europe. The Spanish Civil War was a far more complex affair. The Republic was not “good” and Franco “bad”. The International Brigade “saints”, the Blue Division “sinners”. To bring it to a personnel level, my grandfather was part of the Republic Government, being the Secretary of the socialist Besteiro, and when he saw the atrocities committed by the supporters of the Government, he fled to France in 1937. The description of his flight I discovered by chance when I came across his diaries hidden in a desk in London which I since published this year. The journey through Valencia (Republic controlled) and Cataluña reveals the atrocities committed there, with priests lying in pools of blood on the steps of churches and that he mentioned that the only language spoken in Barcelona was Russian given that the other Totalitarian block, the Soviets, were pouring troops into Spain to fight alongside the Republic & International Brigade. If the idealists of the International Brigade had known of Stalin’s bloody regime, would they have fought alongside his troops? When my grandfather returned to the “liberated” Basque country to help in the reconstruction of Spain, he was promptly thrown into prison. I just fear that another light version of the Spanish Civil war will just compound the “politically correct” version of the war. It is also interesting that today, we are still being influenced by those events in the 30´s & 40´s: Cameron representing the deep lying British distrust of Europe (possibly justified after 2 World Wars) and the battle about to take place tonight in the Bernabeau between, the “good / anti Franco / persecuted Catalans” Barça & the “bad / Franco / winner takes all Castilians” Real Madrid. I wish life was a bit simpler!