A case of intertextual discourse: Ernesto Caballero's Pepe el Romano and Federico García Lorca's La casa de Bernarda Alba.

The theatre of Ernesto Caballero is inherently postmodern. His works, which are intertextually and intratextually conceived and constructed, reject straightforward mimesis and neatly structured narratives in favor of textual interplay and a semiotic system to create a vital link to other works. Caballero'sPepe el Romano. La sombra blanca de Bernarda Alba(2003) is the one play within the playwright's repertoire in which his postmodern proclivity toward intertextuality is the most pronounced, intricate, complex, and sustained. Caballero's play shares a deep intertextual and intratextual relationship with Federico García Lorca'sLa casa de Bernarda Alba(1936), the text from which it formally derives, and which it thematically echoes and structurally replicates. Through an intricate network of allusions, references, character doubling, and metatheatrical conventions, Caballero reproduces the world created by Lorca inLa casa de Bernarda Alba. Like amise-en-abyme,Pepe el Romanois at once an original story and a retelling of what transpires in Lorca's play. Consequently, each work functions as a palimpsest given that traces of one text are visible in the other. To readPepe el Romano. La sombra blanca de Bernarda Albaor view it on the stage is to engage in intertextual discourse withLa casa de Bernarda Alba. Conversely, to read Lorca's play or view it on the stage is to read or view Caballero's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]