20th Century Spanish Theater: From Modernism to Post-Franco Era
Theater in the First Half of the 20th Century
Modernist Theater and the Generation of ’98
At the beginning of the century, inherited theatrical forms from the previous century continued to be represented. Until 1920, there was no noticeable attempt to renovate the theater. Authors of the Generation of ’98 and ’27 laid the groundwork for innovative theatrical creations that transcended Spain’s borders.
A ‘commercial’ theater triumphed in these early decades. Enduring works by Carlos Arniches and the Álvarez Quintero brothers romanticized Madrid and Andalusian society, respectively. Jacinto Benavente became a highly successful author. His initial phase, with The Unloved, involved a modernist renewal, breaking with the 19th-century melodramatic tradition. However, it soon gave way to the successful ‘high comedy’ of bourgeois character. His masterpiece, The Vested Interests, portrays a society based on an interplay of interests through its complementary characters.
Among the Generation of ’98 authors and modernist renovators are Miguel de Unamuno, Azorín, and, above all, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, an innovator of Spanish theater. Valle-Inclán rejected the bourgeois realism of the previous stage and proposed a complete renovation of the Spanish scene in all its aspects. His extensive production can be divided into the following cycles: mythical, grotesque, and farce.
Mythical Cycle
Divine Words, a rural tragicomedy, features a hydrocephalic dwarf whose relatives exploit him for profit at fairs. It critiques a world of misery and cruelty.
Farce Cycle
In this phase, Valle-Inclán contrasts the sentimental and the grotesque to confront reality differently and demystify traditional society with increasingly grotesque language.
Grotesque Cycle
Valle-Inclán distorts everyday reality to offer a grotesque image. This new vision of the world critiques bourgeois society, exposing its most corrupt aspects. The grotesque cycle begins with Bohemian Lights.
Avant-Garde Theater and the Generation of ’27
Rafael Alberti’s theater reflects the concerns of his poetry. The Uninhabited Man stands out in his avant-garde stage. In exile, he wrote The Eyesore.
Federico García Lorca believed that theater should raise awareness and that poets have the power to transform reality through words. Lorca’s theater is a total spectacle, encompassing text, scenery, music, dance, and everything that communicates. His dramatic production can be classified as follows:
Farce
The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife mixes the lyrical and the grotesque.
Impossible Comedies
These plays are difficult to interpret and represent. The Public deals with the world of theater and Lorca’s personal world.
Tragedies of Social Issues
These are Lorca’s most frequently performed plays. Examples include Mariana Pineda and Blood Wedding, which, based on a real event, reflects the tragedy of a bride kidnapped on her wedding day by a former lover and explores a world of poetic symbols: the moon, death, the knife, and the horse. Finally, The House of Bernarda Alba, the pinnacle of his plays, is a ‘drama of the women in the villages of Spain.’
Theater from 1940 to the Present
After the Civil War, Spanish drama lost most of the innovative authors of the previous era. In Spain, a conventional theater emerged, aiming to amuse and entertain a conservative audience. Censorship prevented premieres that expressed even minimal dissent from the prevailing moral and social values. This well-constructed theater featured solid dialogue, predominantly middle-class characters, and themes of love, infidelity, and bourgeois life. Some authors experimented with melodrama to reflect moral and social problems. Notable authors include José María Pemán, Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena, and José López Rubio.
In the theater of humor, two authors stand out for their renovated humor, featuring unusual situations where the improbable and absurd take center stage, expressed in witty language. Enrique Jardiel Poncela, who began his novelistic and theatrical production before the Civil War, presented a caricature of society. Miguel Mihura, also a journalist, embraced improbable humor, freedom, and a nonconformist approach to social conventions. Both Jardiel Poncela and Mihura mastered the use of comic language.
Existential and social realism brought together several playwrights who, despite censorship, conveyed the anxieties of human existence and portrayed Spanish daily life, including the lack of freedom, moral absurdity, and violence. Their critical realism avoided popularity. Antonio Buero Vallejo stands out, whose work consistently denounces injustice and nonconformity in a hostile world, exploring themes of suffering, the search for truth, and the fight for freedom. Buero Vallejo’s work can be divided into three stages:
Existential Stage
The History of a Staircase depicts a gray world of neighbors with their illusions and failures.
Social Stage
He recreated historical themes to circumvent censorship, addressing current situations, as in Las Meninas.
Formal Renewal Stage
He continued with ideological concerns and experimented with formal renewal in The Foundation.
Alfonso Sastre, known for his critical stance and strong will for renewal, also deserves mention. His work, often at odds with public taste and facing censorship issues, includes notable titles like The Condemned Squad and The Fantastic Tavern. Antonio Gala began his theatrical activity during this period.
By 1970, a dramatic renewal movement emerged, seeking a dramatic language based on spectacle, staging, and audiovisual techniques. Prominent authors include Francisco Nieva, Luis Matilla, and Fernando Arrabal, a painter, novelist, filmmaker, and one of the most original dramatists of our time, who revolutionized avant-garde theater with his ‘panic theater.’ His rebellious attitude is evident in works like Picnic.
After this period of experimentation, almost all literary genres returned to tradition, leading to the term ‘neo-realism’ for the period after 1975. The new playwrights leaned towards well-constructed neo-realist comedy, addressing topical issues like drugs and unemployment. Notable new playwrights include José Sanchis Sinisterra, José Luis Alonso de Santos, and Alfonso Vallejo.