20th-Century Spanish Theater: Post-War to Avant-Garde
Post-War Spanish Theater
Situation at the End of the War (1936)
The two great dramatists of the previous period, Valle Inclán and Lorca, died in 1936. Some younger playwrights went into exile, such as Alberti, Casona, and Aub. Others remained in Spain, like Jardiel Poncela and Mihura.
Dramatists in Exile
Two representative names are Alejandro Casona and Max Aub. Casona, who had debuted one of his best works, La sirena varada, before the war, achieved great success in Spain upon his return from exile with titles already released in Latin America, such as The Lady of the Dawn and The Boat Without Fishing. Max Aub’s theater engaged with social and political issues of the time, including World War II, as seen in his work San Juan, Die by Closing the Eyes.
Post-War Theater (1940s)
Post-war theater, significantly influenced by censorship and public entertainment, developed in the 1940s and continued in subsequent decades. Several trends emerged:
Comedy of Manners
Playwrights like José López Rubio, Edgar Neville, and Calvo Sotelo continued this tradition, though it lost some of its earlier character.
Comedy
Jardiel Poncela innovated Spanish comedy-drama with a characteristic dramatic pattern: a nonsensical, absurd situation is progressively clarified throughout the work. Key works include Four Hearts With Brake and Reverse, Heloise Is Under an Almond Tree, and The Thieves Are Honest People. Miguel Mihura, whose innovative Three Hats, written in 1932, was not released until 20 years later, later wrote more commercially successful comedies with mysterious or police elements, such as The Case of the Women and Maribel Asesinadita, or Strange Family.
Social Theater (1950s and 1960s)
Realistic theater sought to renew the Spanish stage and oppose the dictatorship, albeit within the limits of censorship. It flourished in the 1950s and early 1960s.
- Antonio Buero Vallejo: His The Story of a Staircase (1949) is considered the inaugural work of this genre. His work combined social and existential concerns, notably in Las Meninas and San Ovid’s Concert.
- Alfonso Sastre: His early work had an existential component, as seen in Death Squad. Later, his work became increasingly political and social, with plays like The Gag, Death in the Neighborhood, and William Tell Has Sad Eyes.
- Lauro Olmo: The Shirt
- Martín Recuerda: The Savages in Puente San Gil
New Forms of Dramatic Expression (1960s Onward)
From the mid-1960s, there was a break with the aesthetics of social theater, though not its committed nature. Avant-garde theater, influenced by the Theater of the Absurd and Epic Theater, gained prominence in the following decade.
- Fernando Arrabal: Imagination, surreal elements, childlike language, and a break with logic characterize his early works, such as The Tricycle (1953). Exiled in France since 1955, his later works, like The Labyrinth (1956) and Oh, Fatherland, My Sorrow! (1975), explored “panic theater,” celebrating creative freedom and challenging the viewer.
- Francisco Nieva: Crowned and the Bull
- Miguel Romero: Pasodoble
- Antonio Gala: An early innovator, he later embraced commercial theater. The Green Fields of Eden represents his early promise, while later successes like Rings for a Lady led to more traditional, yet successful, productions.
Independent Groups
Collective theater became prominent, with groups like Els Joglars, Tábano, and Comediants creating free versions of famous and previously banned works, incorporating extra-literary elements like song, dance, and mime.