Spanish Theater Before 1939: From Benavente to Lorca
Spanish Theater Before 1939
Theater Prior to 1939
The early 20th century saw Spanish theater dominated by “high comedy” in the style of Echegaray and melodramas aimed at thrilling audiences. Public taste and the reluctance of theater owners hindered attempts at innovation. The first third of the century was characterized by:
- Bourgeois comedy (rural and urban)
- Farcical comedies set in Madrid or Andalusia
- Poetic and symbolic theater
Renewed efforts at theatrical innovation arose with the Generation of ‘98 and, in the 1930s, with the poets of the Generation of ’27.
Trends in Spanish Drama Before 1936
A) Commercial Theater
A.1) Benavente’s Bourgeois Comedy
Jacinto Benavente proposed a restrained style of theater focused on everyday settings. His work offered a gentle critique of bourgeois ideals, as seen in plays like “The Cheesy”, “Autumn Roses”, and “Vested Interests.” He also explored “rural drama” with works like “Lady Love” and “The Malquerida.”
A.2) Verse Drama
This style emphasized the use of modernist poetic language on stage. Key figures include:
- Francisco Villaespesa (“Doña María de Padilla”, “Aben Humeya”, “The Lion of Castile”)
- Eduardo Marquina (“The Daughters of the Cid”, “In Flanders, the Sun Has Set”)
- Manuel and Antonio Machado (collaborations such as “Julian Valcárcel”, “Juan de Manara”, “The Oleander”, and “Lola Goes to the Ports”)
A.3) Comic Theater
The traditional characters and settings depicted in Romantic genre paintings were revived by playwrights such as:
- The Álvarez Quintero brothers, who presented a somewhat superficial and distorted image of Andalusia in popular works like “Hopscotch”, “El Patio”, and “The Cain.”
- Carlos Arniches, who wrote sketches of Madrid life and developed a genre he called “grotesque tragedy,” blending humor and pathos (e.g., “Mademoiselle de Trévelez”).
B) Innovative Theater: Breaking with Tradition
The Theater of the Generation of ’98
Beyond commercial success, these authors sought a theater that could express their religious, existential, and social concerns. They created complex works that combined intellectual and philosophical trends with the most innovative elements of contemporary Western theater.
Valle-Inclán
Valle-Inclán’s diverse output included novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. His work reflects an ideological evolution from a modern, elegant, and nostalgic style (“The Sonatas”) to a more critical and experimental approach. His plays are often categorized into three cycles:
- The Mythical Cycle: Set in a mythical Galicia, featuring works like “Comedy Barbaric” and “Divine Words.”
- The Farcical Cycle: Works situated in a more ridiculous and stylized 18th-century setting, with gardens, roses, and swans, such as “The Marquise Rosalinda.”
- The Grotesque Cycle: An attempt to depict Spanish reality through exaggeration and burlesque, exemplified by “Bohemian Lights” (1920) and the “Mardi Gras” trilogy.
Valle-Inclán’s esperpentos, like “Bohemian Lights,” marked the beginning of the aesthetics of the absurd in Spanish theater. This style offered a critical perspective on a false reality and nonsensical values, reflecting the critical attitude of the Generation of ’98.
The Theater of the Generation of ’27
While poetry was the primary focus of the Generation of ’27, several members also wrote plays, including Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernández, and Alejandro Casona.
Federico García Lorca
Lorca’s dramatic work can be divided into three phases:
Early Plays
His 1920 debut, “The Butterfly’s Evil Spell,” a modernist-influenced work, introduced a recurring theme in Lorca’s drama: romantic dissatisfaction. Its failure was soon offset by the success of “Mariana Pineda,” a historical drama. These were followed by the tragic farces of “The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife” and “The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden,” both exploring themes of unhappy love.
Avant-Garde Theater
Lorca embraced surrealism in plays like the unfinished “The Public,” exploring the hidden instincts of humanity and defending love as an instinct beyond control.
Mature Stage
In the 1930s, Lorca achieved commercial success with plays like “Blood Wedding,” “Yerma,” “Doña Rosita the Spinster,” and “The House of Bernarda Alba.” These works share a focus on the role of women in Spanish society.
“Blood Wedding” and “Yerma” are tragedies with a classical feel, blending prose and verse and employing a chorus reminiscent of Greek tragedy. “Blood Wedding” explores familiar Lorca themes like love, violence, death, and the social norms that repress instincts. “Yerma” tackles issues of sterility and female oppression.
“Doña Rosita the Spinster” is an urban drama that also mixes prose and verse, using the latter for satire and parody.