Spanish Theatre Movements: 1970 Onward

Spanish Theatre Movements Up to 1970

The Theatre Until 1970: This period, much like poetry and fiction during the Civil War, saw significant development.

Bourgeois Comedy

The foremost representative of this style was Jacinto Benavente, who offered a critique of bourgeois society in works such as The Nest (among others).

Theatre Mood and Humor

Several authors defined the theatrical mood:

• Enrique Jardiel Poncela: Author of Eloísa Is Below a Magic Almond, mixing humor and intrigue.
• Miguel Mihura: Broke comic theatre conventions in Three Hats.
• Pedro Muñoz Seca: His work, such as Revenge of Don Mendo, showcased a direct mood of evasion.

Avant-garde Theatre

This movement incorporated European innovations and new media:

• Ramón Gómez de la Serna: Incorporated innovations from European theatre and media.
• Federico García Lorca: Depicted the frustration and confrontation between authority and liberty, blending poetry, reality, and modernist didacticism.

Lorca's Theatrical Concepts:

1. Theatre (e.g., Mariana Pineda): Reflected his conception of theatre as a total spectacle, integrating gestures, music, stage design, and text.
2. Farsas (e.g., The Retrabillo of Cristóbal): Showed human passions and instincts within society.
3. Dramas (e.g., Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba): Explored forbidden love, the drama of female sterility, and the conflict between maternal authority and the desire for liberty.

Existential Theatre

This theatre adopted a pessimistic, serious, and worried tone, committed to immediate reality. It sought to convey truth to disturb and awaken consciences.

• Antonio Buero Vallejo: His extensive career adapted to different historical moments in Spain. His works often depict physical or psychological defects (e.g., The Tailor of Affliction).
• Alfonso Sastre: Believed theatre had a social and political function, leading him to found the so-called Theatre of Social Agitation (TAS).

Commercial Theatre

A theatre emerged focused on entertaining the audience, exemplified by Antonio Gala in works like Green Fields of Eden.

Experimental Theatre

This style resumed the avant-garde tradition, viewing the theatrical experience as a whole.

Theatre from the Seventies Onward

Street Theatre

The final stage of the seventies began with theatre addressing non-traditional performance spaces, where the text took a secondary role. During this period, non-commercial and non-professional drama groups proliferated:

• University Theatre: Experimental theatre focusing on the importance of the actor and their performance.
• The Spectacle: Theatre was conceived as a spectacle where the literary text became secondary or minimal.
• Key Groups in Spain: Els Joglars, Comediants, Tricicle, La Fura dels Baus.

Author Theatre

From the seventies onward, a group of playwrights addressed contemporary issues with a degree of irony and disillusionment:

• Fernando Fernán Gómez: Bicycles Are for the Summer.
• José Sanchis Sinisterra: Ay, Carmela!.
• José Luis Alonso de Santos: Get Off the Moor.