Spanish Theater: Trends, Authors, and Works Before 1936

Spanish Theater Before 1936: Trends, Authors, and Key Works

In the late nineteenth century, European theater was dominated by naturalism, focusing on reflecting human problems and analyzing character psychology. The breakdown of these conventions marked the development of European theater. Various art movements, particularly Dada and Surrealism, sought a complete break with traditional theater. The text became less important, and the viewer was expected to actively participate in the work. Techniques from cabaret, silent film, and puppet theater were incorporated, and stages were moved to unconventional locations like factories and churches.

Benaventino Comedy

Commercial theater saw the triumph of Benaventino Comedy. Jacinto Benavente was the most representative figure of this movement, often focusing on the oppression of married women in bourgeois society. His masterpiece, The Vested Interests, offers a critical view of bourgeois interests.

Verse Drama

At the beginning of the century, post-Romantic poetic drama remnants combined with Art Nouveau features. Francisco Villaespesa and Eduardo Marquina are notable figures in this area. Also included are works written in collaboration with the Machado brothers, such as La Lola is Going to Ports.

Comic Theater and Customs

This category includes comedy of manners and farce. The Álvarez Quintero brothers were leading figures, staging works set in Andalusia. Carlos Arniches generated more critical interest, writing sketches in a castiza style and what he termed "grotesque tragedy." Pedro Muñoz Seca, though considered inferior to Arniches by some, created the genre known as Astrakhan – fanciful pieces whose sole purpose was to elicit laughter from the audience. An example is Don Mendo's Revenge.

The Theater of the Generation of '98: The Grotesque of Valle-Inclán

The Generation of '98 was known for its innovative spirit across genres, including theater. Valle-Inclán's experiments were particularly significant. Other members of the generation also contributed to the renewal of stage practice.

Miguel de Unamuno, Azorín, and Valle-Inclán (1866 - 1936) practiced a theater with a clear vocation for rupture and innovation from the outset. Their evolution progressed from decadent dramas related to early Modernism to the grotesque, culminating in a highly personal representation of the Spanish setting. Luces de Bohemia depicts the last hours of Max Estrella, a blind poet inspired by Seville's decadent Alejandro Sawa, accompanied by Mr. Latin, his "seeing-eye," on a "journey to the depths of the night" in Madrid. The setting offers a grotesque and tragic reflection of the author's critical gaze and torn humor. The absurdity is the pinnacle of Valle-Inclán's evolution and is defined within the work itself.

The Avant-Garde Theater

Ramón Gómez de la Serna's stage productions focused on his youth, with eroticism and social criticism as dominant themes. Vicente Grau (1877-1958) was another representative author of theatrical renewal, pursuing it through two avenues.

The Theater of the Generation of '27

Large groups undertook significant renovation work on the stage, representing leading European authors and young playwrights. During the Republic, theater groups included La Barraca. Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936) deserves special mention for his role in the renovation of the theater. Lorca's theatrical origins lie in rural drama in verse influenced by the modernists. He later engaged in avant-garde experiments in the early 1930s, reflecting the same critical and aesthetic crisis that resulted in Poet in New York. Later, he turned to a fusion of aesthetic rigor and popular theater. During this stage, he wrote two tragedies, two dramas, and an unfinished comedy, with women as protagonists in most of them.

The Theater During the Civil War (1936 - 1939)

The Spanish Civil War caused a disruption of normalcy in the theater. Productions during the war were often laden with ideological connotations. In the Spanish Theatre, the New Stage Theatre Company of the Intellectual Alliance presented Lorca's Blood Wedding, Galdós's Electra, and Benavente's La Malquerida, among others. Street theater was also important, with many theater companies touring towns, fronts, barracks, and hospitals, performing works.