Conservative and Innovative Theater Trends in Spain

Conservative Theater

A) Bourgeois Theater: Benavente

This represents a formal and ideological progression, without breaking with its class principles. Its beginning was traumatic. With The Alien Nest, he had gone beyond criticism of the principles and customs of the time. The deeper he reaches in his criticism, the greater his success with the public. One key is the very latest at the time of its premieres. However, his works go out of style. The Unloved is considered the best work of the three, dealing with rural women and unleashed passions. Its design follows the traditional theatrical postulates of Lope.

B) Comic Theater: Arniches

He began as an author of sketches of manners in Madrid, not forgetting the environments of Levant and Andalusia. It is based on tradition and could be considered an element of ideological manipulation of the masses to encourage meek behavior. The most important element in his plays is the language, with expressive dislocation and distortion of expressions for intentionally humorous purposes. Arniches’ theater signifies an overcoming of the dramatic formula.

C) Poetic Theater

This is anti-realist in character, a reaction to realistic theater. It shows no worries about any kind of criticism, but rejects sad reality and turns its eyes to the legendary Spanish past.

Innovative Theater

Unamuno

In his theater, instead of dialogue, the characters present oral tests outside the action. The plot is not well designed or developed. The religious approach to his problems is reflected.

Azorín

He goes far beyond dialogue, pursuing full freedom of management and interpretation for the actors, altering the scenic structure and reaching the subconscious. Conflict is absent in his works.

Valle-Inclán and the Theater Release

His trajectory shows a continuing commitment to dramatic thematic and formal renewal, and a claim to break with the theater of his time. He uses the absurd. His early dramatic work is poetic drama, incorporating characters with realistic language and attitudes. He dramatizes the nineteenth-century issue of adultery, with decadent, fin de siecle heroines. The Galician environmental dramas, under the name of the mythical cycle, are related by their themes, characters, atmosphere, and meaning, and are located in a mythical, timeless Galicia. They feature archaic society, lust, pride, cruelty, tyranny, sin, sacrilege, superstition, and magic. The farces introduce show business characters, the use of costumes, and play-within-a-play, looking to break the scenic effect. The grotesque distorts certain aspects of the characters and situations, resulting in a caricatured, comic, and macabre vision.

Lorca: Total Theater

He created true poetic drama, a total spectacle. His dramatic production expresses the problems of life and history through a language loaded with connotations. Lorca’s dramas are the first in modernist theater, fitting the defects of verse drama. The four farces develop the conflict of marriage of convenience between the old and young, through puppet shows for winking farce. The Farce for People. The theater cannot anticipate the breaking of space-time logic, split personality, and interpretation. It shows the influence of surrealism. The tragedy takes place in a rural environment, where natural forces impose a tragic destiny. The argument is of little importance, with few main characters and involving choirs, as seen in Blood Wedding.