Evolution of 20th-Century Spanish Theater

Spanish Theater Until 1975

Spanish theater has evolved from evasion and humor since the postwar period, through realistic social drama, to formal renewal.

Stages of Spanish Theater

• Humor Theater: In the 1940s, alongside the theater of evasion, a cultivated humor theater developed.
• Realistic Theater: History of a Stairway determined a change. Committed works emerged.
• Theater of Formal Renewal or Avant-Garde: From the 1960s, authors like Francisco Nieva (Hair Storm) and Fernando Arrabal (The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria) created symbolic and allegorical theater. In the late 1960s, independent theater groups emerged, which jointly created works and changed the theatrical conception of the time, such as Horsefly (Tábano) or La Cuadra.

Antonio Buero Vallejo

The first works of Buero Vallejo (Story of a Stairway and In the Burning Darkness) reflect on existential angst dramas. His subsequent works (A Dreamer for a People, The Concert at Saint Ovide, and The Skylight) deepen social problems. In these works, the author introduces historical characters and settings, featuring novelties in staging such as multiple scenarios, temporal ellipses, and immersion effects. He continued restoring theatrical techniques with The Dream of Reason, The Foundation, The Double Case History of Doctor Valmy, and The Detonation.

Historia de una Escalera

The Plot

On the stairs of a tenement, the lives of a number of characters intersect, dominated by frustration, despair, their oppressed lives, and society. One of the neighbors, Fernando, is a young idealist full of hopes and dreams that he cannot reach because he betrays his true feelings (his love for Carmina) for what is easiest (Elvira's money). His friend Urbano is a pusillanimous being who blames his failure on fate and does not face it due to a lack of support, a situation that repeats thirty years later with their children.

Contemporary Spanish Theater

Since the late 1960s, theater has become important as a social and cultural event, shedding its purely literary character.

• Experimental Groups: Many collective creation groups survive.
• Realistic Theater: This style collects current situations, humor, and irony. Key authors include José Luis Alonso de Santos, Fermín Cabal, and José Sanchis Sinisterra.