Spanish Theater in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Previous Theater 1936
The Spanish scene had little to offer to European culture in the early twentieth century. The Spanish theater resisted the experimental trends that arose in Europe during this period. Although there were authors like Unamuno, Valle-Inclán who were ahead of their time, they collided with a public that did not accept their kind of theater. For this reason, their innovations had little or no importance. Arniches and Jacinto Benavente Carlos are the authors representing the commercial theater that, moreover, had great vitality.
Traditional Drama
Within the traditional drama is a poetic drama written in verse and specialized in historical subjects whose representatives are Eduardo Marquina and Francisco Villaespesa.
Carlos Arniches
Carlos Arniches is the most representative author of the comic theater. He became famous for his sketches of castizo atmosphere coming from Madrid and his grotesque tragedies such as Mademoiselle de Trévelez.
Jacinto Benavente
Jacinto Benavente’s theater is a realistic and restrained theater. He was the author preferred by the bourgeoisie from his first known works, to the last such as Titania. His plays are characterized by the absence of serious conflict and the very gentle exercise of criticism. The vested interests is his most famous work.
Theater Renovation
Within the theater renovation efforts, we must quote Unamuno who used the theater as a method of knowledge through some strange drama which he called schematic drama such as Soledad and the other or an anti-realist theater Azorín, and without conflict as in Old Spain.
Valle-Inclán
Valle-Inclán is the greatest figure of the Spanish twentieth-century theater. He began writing plays in 1905 and for 20 years it was his main occupation. For him, theater is a total spectacle, using cinematic techniques and constantly experimenting. Appalled at contemporary society in two ways, either through artful evasion or more biting sarcasm. His first theater is kind of modernist: The Marquis of Bradomín. After the intermediate stage of the mythic cycle formed by the Divine Comedy and barbarous words, in Galicia used as a background to give a world view in which the forces of evil and destruction governing the existence of men, came to the Valle brilliant creation, the grotesque, a grotesque view, distorted view of reality that serves as a reflection of the times he lived. Luces de Bohemia, the play tells us in the last hours of poor and blind poet, Max Star in a winter night in Madrid, in the normal context of violence and chaos is his most representative.
Second Republic
With the advent of the Second Republic in 1931 and lent strong support to the theater through Educational Missions, or La Barraca de Federico García Lorca, avant-garde theater of Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernandez, Max Aub, or Lorca himself was held to develop.
Lorca’s Drama
The drama of Lorca is the most important of his generation. Theater starts with a poetic type in Mariana Pineda, passes through the avant-garde phase So spend five years and ends with the great tragedies of the last phase, characterized by the social sense, the longing for freedom, justice and personal realization. His three major tragedies he calls for dramatic trilogy of Spanish life are Blood Wedding, Yerma, and especially his masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba, written in 1936.
Romantic Theater
Romanticism first appeared in Germany. It spread through Europe in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. In Spain, it arrived later because it was necessary to wait for the death of Ferdinand VII, in 1833, when the Liberals returned exiles with romantic ideas that would soon triumph here.
Characteristics of Romanticism
The Romantic movement advocates the rebellion of the individual against any rule that prevents him from expressing his own feelings, the desire for absolute liberty and the pursuit of beauty. The despair and disappointment are typical characteristics as a result of the frustration of the individual to confront their ideas of freedom and beauty to the world around him.
Romantic Drama
Teaching against the claims of neoclassical theater, the romantic drama without standards advocate a very different scenarios and time that shortens or lengthens the author’s taste, mix of prose and verse, the tragic and the comic, looking for inspiration in medieval themes and presented to an individual hero dominated by passions. The Romantic works have a funky edge, with plentiful violent scenes: abduction, rape, duels, suicide, burial environments … Facing the neoclassical theater, which never enjoyed the public favor, the romantic drama met in Spain a huge, but short-lived success.
Authors and Works
- With Antonio García Gutiérrez, Author of The Troubadour, began the custom of author and actors to come out and greet after the performance.
- The introducer of romanticism in Spain is the Duke of Rivas, with his work Don Alvaro or the force of destiny, which was a great success.
- Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch was based on an ancient legend to create Lovers of Teruel, another of the great Romantic works.
- But the playwright who achieved greater success was José Zorrilla, with Don Juan Tenorio. Based on a work of Golden Age drama The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest by Tirso de Molina, essentially creates a romantic drama in which the seducer is redeemed by the power of love. It is one of the Spanish theater works most representative over time.