This dissertation studies the reflections on power and rewritings of myth and history in three Spanish playwrights and the effect that they had on the renewal of the playwriting scene in contemporary Spain during the period that extends from the decade of the seventies to the nineties. This dissertation also establishes a relationship of the plays’ reflections on power through the concepts of carnavalization, performance and metatheater. The plays studied are La carroza de plomo candente by Francisco Nieva (1971), Representación de Don Juan Tenorio por el carro de las meretrices ambulantes (1973) by Luis Riaza and La sombra del Tenorio (1994), by José Luis Alonso de Santos.

Although these plays were written at different times, they all pose similar hypotheses about power that we can better understand through the theories of carnavalization, performance and metatheater. The dissertation reveals the complexity of the meanings of power and truth and their deconstruction in the plays. Finally, my study offers a new light on three plays that have been largely overlooked, but which nevertheless forecast new directions for Spanish theater.