Spanish Theatre Evolution: From Vanguard to Modernity (1975-Present)

Vanguard and Experimental Theatre

This movement includes authors like Fernando Arrabal and Francisco Nieva, and independent theatre groups. They reject realist techniques, incorporating scenic innovations from 20th-century theatre innovators.

Relevant Characteristics:

• Rejection of Realism: New Theatre presents symbolic or allegorical themes.
• Topics: Social and political conditions in Spain, denouncing social injustice and protesting for freedom.
• Characters: Lack psychological depth, are dehumanized or caricatured, becoming symbols.
• Dramatic Action: Fragmented into short, non-linear sequences.
• Stage Space: Innovative design, integrating audience seating into the stage area.
• Theatre as Play: The theatrical event is considered a game.

The Theatre of Vallejo Buero

Buero Vallejo has extensive dramatic production covering various trends, particularly war-related themes. His works can be categorized into three types:

• Social and Existential Drama: Historia de una Escalera deals with economic hardships, hopes, and frustrations of lower-class families. It explores their inability to improve their living conditions, using a dingy staircase as a symbol of societal resistance to change.
• Historical Drama: Las Meninas showcases thematic and formal innovations: recreating historical events, using simultaneous stages, fragmented characters, and a narrator.
• Experimental Theatre: La Fundación intensifies formal experimentation.

Spanish Theatre from 1975 to the Present

The early years of democracy saw a new generation of dramatists, including Fermín Cabal and Paloma Pedrero, moving away from dominant experimental theatre and proposing new formulas.

Highlights:

• Return to playwrights and reassessment of social text.
• Exclusion of political purposes in theatre.
• Return to realistic dramatic formulas.
• Characters based on real life, using colloquial language, allowing viewer identification.
• Incorporation of dreams, the subconscious, and the irrational.
• Aim to reach a wide audience, especially young people, removing excessive experimentalism or intellectualism.
• Use of humor and irony in language and situations.
• Integration of theatrical techniques and influence from modern film techniques.

Trends in Spanish Theatre Since 1975

Bourgeois Comedy

High-quality commercial theatre, represented by playwrights like Ana Diosdado and Maria Manuela Reina.

Comedy of Manners

Addresses contemporary social issues (drugs, crime, personal problems). Protagonists are urban youth using colloquial language or slang, expressing a pessimistic worldview. Key playwrights include Fermín Cabal, Paloma Pedrero, and José Luis de Santos (Bajarse al moro).

Historical Theatre

Features playwrights like Concha Romero, Ignacio García, and Fernando Fernán Gómez. Some works address the Civil War, such as José Sanchis Sinisterra's ¡Ay, Carmela!, constructed through dialogue.