Spanish Theater in the Early 20th Century: Trends and Key Figures

Spanish Theater in the Early Decades of the 20th Century

Spanish Theater During the First Third of the Century

Spanish theater during the first third of the century catered to a bourgeois public. Consequently, innovative theater was often stifled due to conflicts with commercial barriers and established tastes.

The most prominent dramatic currents of this period were:

1. The theater that triumphed on stage continued the prevailing trends of the late 19th century.
2. The theater that sought innovation, with new techniques and approaches, as seen in the works of Valle-Inclán.

The Triumphant Theater: Benaventina Comedy

1. Jacinto Benavente is the most representative figure of the possibilities and limitations of the time. Notable work: The Vested Interests.
2. Verse drama combined post-romantic and modernist features.
3. Comic drama was represented mainly by farce and the comedy of manners. The brothers Álvarez Quintero, Serafín and Joaquín, portrayed a topical Andalucía.

Innovative Theater

Innovative experiments sought to bring to the theater writers of the stature of Valle-Inclán, Unamuno, and García Lorca, but often met with failure.

Experiences of the Generation of '98

Miguel de Unamuno reflected in his theater the human conflicts that obsessed him, using dense dialogue. Notable works: Phaedra and The Other.

Azorín's late theatrical experiments delved into the unreal and symbolic.

New Revivalist Impulse: The Avant-Garde and the Generation of '27

Ramón Gómez de la Serna: His media were loved as symbols of incomplete personalities.

Rafael Alberti: Notable work: The Deserted Man.

Like Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca took two different paths: avant-garde theater alongside surrealism and realistic drama. Notable works: Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba.

Jacinto Grau

By the 1930s, Jacinto Grau sought a renewal of the stage. He wanted to write a dense, cultured drama, but it did not reach the Spanish public. His work recreates the great myths of literature, including Don Juan. Notable work: Don Juan de Carillana.

The Theater of Valle-Inclán: Between Modernism and the Avant-Garde

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán was born in Pontevedra in 1866. He studied law, and the Republic appointed him director of the Spanish Academy in Rome.

Ideological and Literary Career

From the beginning, Valle-Inclán was anti-bourgeois, which led him to extol the values of the archaic rural society in which he had been formed. Initially, he was a modernist and defended the movement as an expression of anti-bourgeois aesthetics. However, after 1915, he adopted radical and revolutionary positions. His political views became radical as a result of the chaotic situation in Spain.

Despite the traditional division of Valle-Inclán's literary career into two stages (the first modernist and the second grotesque), the dividing line is not clear, as his evolution was not linear but recurring and simultaneous.