Spanish Theater of the 20th Century: Key Movements and Authors
Spanish Theater of the 20th Century
Bourgeois Theater
The bourgeois theater is the genre par excellence, focusing on social customs and themes set in urban environments, aimed at the middle and upper-middle classes. It seeks a scenic realism that reflects everyday life.
- Jacinto Benavente: The Alien Nest, The Unloved, Lady Loves Saturday Night, Autumn Roses, The Vested Interests.
Theater in Verse
Heir to the romantic and modernist drama in language and character presentation, with echoes of the Golden Age. Its main theme was the historical drama.
- Eduardo Marquina: In Flanders, the Sun Has Set, The Daughters of the Cid.
- Francisco Villaespesa: The Castle of Pearls, Aben Humeya.
- Brothers Machado: La Lola is Going to Ports.
Comic Theater
This genre follows the tradition of Lope de Rueda, interludes, and farces.
- Carlos Arniches: The Saint of the Isidro, The Friend Melquiades, Chieftains, Is My Man, Miss Trevélez.
- Brothers Álvarez Quintero: The Grill, Fans and Tambourines, The Yard, Cain, Loves and Loves, Malvalova.
- Pedro Muñoz Seca: Don Mendo's Revenge.
Theater of the Generation of '98
- Unamuno: The Band, Raquel Chained, The Other, The Sphinx, Phaedra.
- Azorín: The Invisible, The Spider in the Mirror, The Reaper, Doctor Death, 3 to 5.
- Valle-Inclán:
- Stage of Transition: Mythical comedies, barbaric comedies (Eagle Blazon, Romance de Lobos, Silver Face), Divinas Palabras.
- The Farces: The Head of the Dragon, La Marquesa Rosalinda, Farce of the Beloved Italian King, Farce and Queen Castiza License.
- The Scarecrow (Esperpento): Luces de Bohemia, Mardi Gras (The Horns of Don Friolera, Deceased Galas, The Captain's Daughter), Altarpiece of Greed, Lust and Death.
- Jacinto Grau: Count Alarcon, Prodigal Son, The Lord of Pygmalion, Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Theater of the Generation of '27
- Pedro Salinas: Judith and the Tyrant, The Director.
- Rafael Alberti: Uninhabited Man; Political Theater: Fermín Galán, Of a Sudden, War Night at the Museum of Prado; Poetic Theater: The Scarecrow.
- Federico García Lorca:
- Farce: The Curse of the Butterfly, Tragicomedy of Don Cristobal and Rosita Sena, Retablillo de Don Cristobal, Amor de Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden, The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife.
- Works of Fullness: Mariana Pineda, Blood Wedding, Yerma, Doña Rosita the Spinster and the Language of Flowers, The House of Bernarda Alba, The Public, Within Five Years.
Other Playwrights of the '27 Generation
- Miguel Hernández: Who Has Seen and Who Sees You and the Shadow of Its Era, The Farmer of More Air, Theater in the War.
- Max Aub: A Bottle, The Jealous and His Girlfriend, Dying to Ignore.