Trends in 20th Century Spanish Theater Before 1936
TRENDS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY SPANISH THEATER BEFORE 1936
Introduction
There are two trends:
- The commercial theater or immobility: Spain remained outside the theater renovation taking place in Europe with authors such as Henrik Ibsen, Luigi Pirandello, Anton Chekhov. The reason for this is that employers were reluctant to risk money, mainly due to the public taste, and accommodated by an attitude of established authors who did not want to risk their popularity.
- The theater renovator: Less conformist authors such as Valle-Inclán and Unamuno emerged, but their achievements were very small, and in many cases, their works failed to be represented.
COMMERCIAL THEATER
It has three modes:
- The high comedy or comedy Benaventine: Jacinto Benavente (Nobel Prize for Literature) was the representative and creative peak. Following criticism for his work “The Alien Nest,” he accommodates a mild criticism of some conflicting problems of bourgeois morality as his “so cheesy.” In general, his meticulously prepared theater stage and mastery of dialogue were widely accepted by the public. However, his best works depart from this bourgeois theater, such as “Vested Interests,” a play in which elements of art, love, and money are confronted. “The Unloved” is a rural drama, with strong passions in half suffocating conditions the behavior of the characters.
- Theater poetic or modernist drama: Written in verse with a modernist sense of historical issues from a conservative ideology.
Authors:
– Francisco Villaespesa with “Doña Maria de Padilla”
– Eduardo Marquina with “In Flanders, the Sun Has Set.”
– The Machado brothers, away from the historical, delve into the psychology of the characters in “La Lola is Going to Ports.” - Theater humorous or popular comic: Written for an undemanding audience in order to spend a fun time. His songs are easy on vices and virtues in a friendly tone of the audience, characters externalized, popular and authentic “The Young Rascal” or “Poor Honest” with language and humor that plays avulgarado talk about different parts of Spain.
Authors:
– Carlos Arniches, writes sketches about Madrid castizo “The Saint of the Isidro.” His major works are called grotesque tragedies in the comic tone that leads to dig some social criticism, “Ms. Trevélez.”
– Álvarez Quintero brothers bring their works costumbrismo Andalusian “The Gay Genius.”
– Pedro Muñoz Seca creates the theatrical genre known as Astrakhan, which bases its humor in jokes and absurd situations easy “Don Mendo’s Revenge.”
REFRESHING THEATER
It had little attention except as a representation of Garcia Lorca theater along with the Valle-Inclán, are the innovators of twentieth-century drama.
- In the Generation of 98: Authors who innovate in the theater:
– Unamuno: Their works without action are just pure dialogue about internal conflicts: “Phaedra” and “The Other.”
– Azorín: Incorporates the procedures theater symbolism, surrealism, focusing particularly on its excessive theme of time: “The Invisible.”
– Valle-Inclán: The most important Spanish playwright of the Golden Age was not yet represented his works. Away from the commercial theater is both radical and thematic approaches in the richness of his language of expression and free thinking of time and space stage.
BACKGROUND:
1. Modernist stage at his most brilliant and decadent “April Story” and “Wilderness of Souls.”
2. Stage focused on his native Galicia: Collected on a fast-paced action and an increasingly harsh language passions, superstitions, and myths. The most important works are: “Trilogy” Comedies Barbarian “(composed by “Eagle Emblem,” “Romance de Lobos” and “Silver Face”) and “Divinas Palabras.”
3. Stage grotesque: It is a major contribution to Spanish theater plays in the world of the twentieth century. The scarecrow is a denunciation of contemporary Spanish society (an attitude of compromise that justifies the intrusion of Valle-Inclán in the generation of 98) by a distorted view of reality following the technique of concave mirrors, this deformation is achieved by caricaturing the convert characters to mere puppets or marionettes and through language that reflects the most diverse records (irony, violence, tenderness …) “Bohemian Lights” (1920) with which this stage begins. In this work, adEMAS consists of exposing the monstrosity that describes the last night of life of the blind poet, bohemian and poor, Max Estrella Madrid that runs through the night before his death to reflect the most miserable aspects of human life. The trilogy “Mardi Gras” Don Friolera Horns,” “The Trappings of the Dead” and “The Captain’s Daughter” in which he ridicules the myth of Spanish culture (Don Juan, honor …). - In the Novecento: Theater performing a cult, intellectual, along the lines of European drama “Lord of Pygmalion” by Jacinto Grau.
- The Avant-Garde: Ramón Gómez de la Serna writes theater for those not wanting to go to the theater “The Media Loved.”
- In the theater of the Generation of 27: The Generation of 27 contributes to the renovation of the theater to incorporate leading-edge techniques and developing the social concept of the theater, that is, created theatrical companies or associations (the Barraca, educational missions, theater,) in order to bring the theater the people and educate an audience other than the commercial theater. Among the authors of 27:
– Pedro Salinas: Posed ethical conflicts in the theater of human beings “Judith and the Tyrant.”
– Rafael Alberti: Theater avant-garde design that evolves into commitment “The Eyesore.”
– Max Aub: Is the theme of human isolation in “Heads or Tails,” “Dying to Close Your Eyes.”
– Alejandro Casona: Writes a poetic and lyrical drama that blends dream and reality with a social and didactic intent “La Sirena Varada.” His great success was obtained after the war in exile.
– Federico García Lorca:
General characterization of his theater:
– Conceives of drama as social and educational work, founded La Barraca.
– Theme: Vitalism tragic, political conventions, social, religious … impede the realization of which it derives the frustration and tragedy.
– Style: Lorca poet everyday life through metaphorical symbolism, and the incorporation of music and customs.
Major works, three stages:
– The first stage (years 20) and writes a popular children’s theater “Retablillo de Don Cristobal,” works of love are impossible as “The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife.”
– The second stage (1930-1933: The trip to New York City influences your career in theater, then joined the surrealist language works and the denunciation of a society full of prejudice “People,” “So Five Years Pass.”
– The third stage (1933-1936), the year of his execution: Women are now the bearers of tragic destiny, the play “Doña Rosita the Spinster and the Language of Flowers” and above all its tragedies “Blood Wedding” “Yerma” and “The House of Bernarda Alba.” Conflict between authoritarianism (which imposes very strict mourning their daughters Bernarda Alba by the death of her husband) vs. freedom (his daughters, especially the youngest and commits suicide other four accept the authority of the mother).
THEATER OF INTELLECTUAL HUMOR
A number of authors attempt to renovate the theater of humor replacing the obvious joke by playing with language and absurd situations, improbable behind which there is social criticism, society is as absurd as those raised in the theater scenes.
Authors:
- Henry Jardiel Poncela: “Angelina or Honor of a Brigadier,” “Four Hearts with Brake and March Behind.”
- Miguel Mihura: His bout “Tres Sombreros de Copa” makes a mockery of provincial bourgeois society, the premiere in 1932, was a failure. However, after the civil war, these authors are adapting to the public taste, and that’s when truly succeed. Enrique Poncela, “Eloisa Beneath an Almond Tree.” Miguel Mihura with “Peaches,” “Maribel and the Strange Family.”
POST A 1936 THEATER
Introduction:
The Civil War had a severe impact on any cultural event, it did especially in the theater under a public because in addition to death and exile of writers, directors and actors have to add commercial and ideological versions marked censorship that not only text but also affects the representation.
40s: Theater of Postwar
Continuous-bourgeois comedy that follows the form of comedy Benaventine Jacinto Benavente: Defender of traditional values mild criticism of the bourgeoisie, well-built plot. Represented by authors like Torcuato Luca de Tena, Joaquín Calvo Sotelo.
Continuing the legacy humor theater both farce, Astrakhan, obvious joke, low-quality literary and intellectual mood Jardiel Poncela (“Heloise is Beneath an Almond Tree”), Miguel Miura (“Tres Sombreros de Copa”) while mitigating his daring adapting to public taste.
Decades of the 50 and 60: Teatro Realistic Protest and Denunciation
With the works ‘History of the Staircase’ (1949) by Antonio Buero Vallejo and the work “Toward Death Squad” (1953) by Alfonso Sastre started a theater that puts on stage than current problems within an existentialist stream. The theater will refer to the social concern leading to the theater of social realism.
Features:
- Theme: Staged in what censorship allows social injustice, human exploitation, hypocrisy, violence of the powerful.
- Characters: They are victims in a cul-output.
- Form: Use straightforward language, with realistic technique uses farce to reflect the customs and symbols used to save problems with censorship.
Main authors:
- Mendez-Rodriguez, the innocent de la Moncloa.
- Carlos Muniz: The Ink.
- Lauro Olmo: Shirt.
- Martin Recalls: The Savages on the Bridge San Gil.
Decades of 60-70: Teatro Unrealistic Protest and Denunciation
Theater critic: Dealing with the same themes but in different ways.
It incorporates:
- Cutting-edge techniques: Symbolism, surrealism, Dadaism.
- News on the European theater as Berlot Brecht’s epic theater, theater of cruelty of A. Artaud and the theater of the absurd of Ionesco or Beckett.
- Important elements extraverbal as lights, sound, mime …
- Improvisation and theater collective, public participation.
Authors:
- Authors are innovated earlier as A. Buero Vallejo.
- Authors are peculiar to this stage: José Ruibal, Mediero Martínez, Francisco Nieva and Alan Ayckbourn that after failing in Spain with the premiere of his “Men of Tricycle” emigrated to France and writing in French triumph achieved by founding the theater panic chaired by confusion, humor, random, and euphoria.
- Independent theater groups that operate outside the halls of theaters established “The Goliardos,” “Gadfly,” “Block.”
THEATER SINCE 1975: THEATER IN DEMOCRACY
Democracy brought the opportunity to express openly any tendency both in form and content. Multiplicity of events ranging from theater company theater, movie theater cheap institutional cultural purposes
Authors
-Continued A. Buero Vallejo ( “judges of the night”, “mission to the desert people”) which codifies the most important Spanish author of the theater of the 2nd half of the twentieth century
“Triumphs Antonio Gala theater symbolism alternating with realistic dramas or historical recreations to raise individual disputes (love, freedom, loneliness) in such works as” Petra gifted “or” Samarcandra ”
Realistic on-line problems of contemporary society that mixes humor, farce, farce on authors such as Alonso de Santos ( “The Vallecas tobacconist) or Fernando Fernan Gomez (” Bicycles are for summer “)
-Independent theater groups become more professional, “Els Joglrs”, add “Tricycle,” “Dagon” Dagoll “