Evolution of Spanish Theater: From Absurdism to Realism

40 Years: Nonsense Comedy

Linked to the humor magazine The Quail, this movement seeks to criticize the sentimentality and hypocrisy of bourgeois conventions. A major work is Three Hats by Miguel Mihura, written in 1932 but released in 1952.

In a provincial hotel, where he spends the night before his wedding, Dionisio falls in love with Paula, who works at the circus. He wavers between the respectable bourgeois world (represented by Don Sacramento, his fiancée's father) and the free, wandering world of the circus. Ultimately, he is unable to jump the invisible wall separating the two. The humor relies on the accumulation of useless objects, wordplay, and the subversion of clichés. Other notable works include Maribel and the Strange Family and Ninette and a Gentleman from Murcia.

50 Years: Social Theater

Antonio Buero Vallejo is the most prominent playwright of this era. He aims to raise viewer awareness of the tragic condition of man, thrown into a life headed toward pain and uncertainty. His work supports a critical analysis of the Spanish reality of the time.

Theatrical Strategies

• Historical characters: Figures who fail in their attempt to achieve a more just and free society, used to reflect on contemporary issues.
• Immersion effects: Techniques that place the viewer inside the minds of the characters.

Other authors include Alfonso Sastre (Squad in Death, 1953) and Lauro Olmo (The Shirt, 1960).

60 Years: Experimental Theater

The chief representative is Fernando Arrabal, who reacted in the 1960s against social drama. Its features include:

• Symbolic theater: Offering parables or allegories.
• Nonverbal cues: Importance of gestures, movements, and stagecraft.
• Poetic or absurd dialogue.
• Provocative themes: Presence of sex, violence, or insanity.

Other works by Arrabal include Picnic, The Tricycle, and The Automobile Graveyard.

Contemporary Theater

With the advent of democracy, theater turned toward realism with works like Get Off the Moor by José Luis Alonso de Santos or the plays of Fernando Fernán Gómez. It is also important to highlight independent groups such as La Fura dels Baus and Els Joglars, which tend toward collective creation and nonverbal performance.