ALEJANDRO CASONA VISITOR RECEPTION CENTRE

This centre, dedicated to the playwright Alejandro Casona, takes a chronological journey through the life and work of the writer of the Generation of ‘27, born in the village of Besullo. His beginnings, his life and his evolution can be seen in the exhibition, which reflects the influence of his home village on the literary production of this eminent Asturian writer.

 

It also has a summarised and ordered exhibition about Besullo, its houses, its people, its traditions and its environment, as well as a beautiful collection of ethnographic and craft elements that will take us back to times when the isolation of the area meant that people developed an important craft talent based on the materials that the nature of the area offered them.

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The visit to the Visitor Reception Centre is highly recommended as a preliminary step to the guided tour of Besullo and the Mallet, because it will give you a global vision of the village, its history, its customs and traditions, the peculiarity of its ironworking tradition... and the figure and work of Alejandro Casona. In this way, the guided tour will be much more profitable.

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The ground floor houses the foyer, a cosy room where visitors are welcomed and which also serves as a tourist information point for the Town Council of Cangas del Narcea and the Tourist Region of Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña and Ibias. The rest of the floor displays information panels on the history, architecture, customs and traditions of the village of Besullo, with exhibits on the traditional trades and crafts of the area. The l.lariega stands out, a reproduction of a traditional old kitchen, the central room of the primitive local house, as well as objects of the ferreira (ironworking) and cesteira (basket making) tradition.

 

The upper floor of the Visitor Reception Centre is entirely dedicated to the Besullense writer Alejandro Casona. Its information panels retrace the adventures of our most universal playwright.

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In the first corridor we find his childhood, his youth and his first successes as a writer, until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The return corridor immerses us in Casona's exile in Argentina and a journey through his theatrical and cinematographic work, culminating with ‘La dama del alba’ ('The Lady of the dawn'), Alejandro's masterpiece, the action of which takes place entirely in the village of Besullo. The items on display on the Casona floor range from the author's personal objects to first editions or curious editions of his main books, as well as a small display of replicas of posters of the premieres of his works in theatres all over the world.