Ramón del Valle-Inclán and Federico García Lorca: Spanish Theater
Ramón del Valle-Inclán and Federico García Lorca: Titans of the Spanish Stage
Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Revolutionary Theater
Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s work represents one of the peaks of European Theater in the 20th century. His originality in dramatic statements and innovative use of language are remarkable. His plays take us from decadent and anti-realist beginnings to the discovery of absurdity, achieving a formal and thematic renewal.
*Stage Transition:*
The transition between these two aesthetics is marked by *Comedias bárbaras* (*Barbarian Comedies*), a trilogy set in a mythical Galicia. These plays are considered “comedies” due to their structure and “barbaric” due to the violent passions that disturb their dark and bloody characters, presenting an apocalyptic vision of a crumbling world. *Divinas palabras* (*Divine Words*) is also situated in this ancestral, mythical, and irrational Galicia, governed by primitive passions between religiosity and superstition. The dialogue is violent, obscene, and torn, contrasting with the stylized descriptions of the stage directions.
*The Farces:*
Valle-Inclán uses farce to ridicule characters and situations, representing a further step towards the grotesque.
*The Esperpento (Grotesque):*
The *esperpento* is a distortion of reality, presenting it as extravagant and ridiculous. This term first appears in *Luces de Bohemia* (*Bohemian Lights*). With it, Valle-Inclán expressed his vision of the world, especially the political and cultural degradation of Spain in the early 20th century. The heroes of the past become *fantoches* (puppets). Their behavior is that of the antihero.
Luces de Bohemia is one of the most significant plays of the 20th century, comprised of fifteen scenes. Its language is vivid, with great imagination and verbal ingenuity. There is a variety of registers. Valle-Inclán ridicules characters representing the more educated strata by making them speak in a pedantic and grandiloquent language. Special mention should be made of the author’s novelistic and literary asides, which subjectively characterize characters and environments.
Federico García Lorca’s Poetic Theater
Federico García Lorca aimed for a quality theater that reached all social classes. His theater, written in both verse and prose, is essentially poetic and expressed through a code of symbols similar to his poetry. Numerous musical elements, harmonized with the dialogue, help create an atmosphere of great lyrical intensity. The themes of his works mirror those of his poetry: the impossibility of fulfilling love, the imposition of social conventions, and the fatalism of characters doomed to a tragic death. Everything always ends in frustration. The tragic protagonist of his theater is the woman.
*Works of Fullness:*
The woman as a tragic heroine first appears in *Mariana Pineda*, written in verse, a hymn to freedom and love. With *Bodas de sangre* (*Blood Wedding*), which alternates prose and verse, he achieved significant success. He is one of the few authors able to satisfy both a demanding minority and a wide audience. A fundamental reason for this is the strength of blood ties that lead the bride to abandon the groom on their wedding day to run off with Leonardo, her true passion, from whom she was separated and who is married to another woman. The lovers are pursued at night, amidst dire portents from the character of the Moon, who symbolizes inevitability, and the groom’s mother, who, from the beginning of the play, insists on the fate of men, recalling the violent deaths of her husband and other son. The confrontation between Leonardo and the groom causes the death of both, condemning the women to silence and solitude. This work and *Yerma* were conceived by Lorca as part of a dramatic trilogy of the Spanish land. Almost all of Lorca’s dramas depict the struggle leading to failure. Lorca’s later work, *La casa de Bernarda Alba* (*The House of Bernarda Alba*), is his most complete: the author’s dramatic testament.