Exploring the Evolution of Spanish Theater: Key Figures
Prelopista Theater. Until the sixteenth century, plays were only performed in Castilian. It was not until the sixteenth century, the century in which the first symptoms of the theater boom appeared, that two generations of authors emerged: In the first half, the genre was cultivated by Juan del Encina, creator of comedies and humorous themes of love, and Gil Vicente, who emphasized the introduction of traditional songs in his plays. In the second half, a new group of authors, known as prelopistas, emerged, including Lope de Rueda and Juan de la Cave. The former was known for his humorous characters and slang, while the latter introduced arguments based on historical events in comedy.
Lope de Vega, using elements from both earlier theater and his own innovations, created a highly successful grammatical model.
Now, we will name the characteristics of the comedia by Lope de Vega.
First, it addresses an audience of comedy theater, breaking the three classic unities of place, time, and action. Events are reduced from 5 to 3 days, and the exhibition is divided into a beginning, middle, and end. It almost always uses the character of the funny to mix tragedy and comedy, and lastly, the plays are written in verse.
We also need to discuss the characters created by Lope de Vega in his comedies.
The characters follow a repeated pattern in all his works: the king is either an old king who exercises justice or a gallant king who is unjust and arrogant. The powerful appears as a noble wild knight who comes to restore family honor. The lover and the lady are the stars of the comedy, while the funny and the maid are faithful and fun, but ultimately, there is the villain, a farmer whose honor is based on the purity of blood.
The theater in this century became very popular with the advent of this type of comedy, a generalized term to describe the baroque style, which does not follow traditional rules and whose creator is Lope de Vega. This new type of comedy is a drama in verse, which uses different verses according to the situations and features at least two parallel stories, one involving nobles and the other their servants, allowing for a mixture of tragedy and comedy as we have seen before.
Pens Comedy: Comedy theaters were neighborhood courtyards surrounded by houses, where there was a siding that served as the stage. Men were placed in the courtyard while women stood in front of the stage, in an elevated area called pot. The balconies and windows overlooking the courtyard were occupied by affluent viewers.
The performance began at about 2 PM and started with a celebration in verse, which was a dialogue that began the function to display and attract attention. Between the first and second acts, there was a snack, and between the second and third acts, a dance took place.
In baroque comedy, two themes are repeated: First, love, which drives the lover to woo the lady, and second, honor and glory.
3. Lope de Vega.
Lope de Vega was born and died in Madrid. His own life and baroque contrasts are linked to his work. He studied at Alcalá de Henares, lived love stories, and married Isabel de Urbina, his first wife. The success of his plays did not stop him from working as secretary and confidante to the Duke of Sosa. Ordained in 1614, he fell in love and had a long relationship with Marta de Nevares until he died. Lope de Vega wrote up to five plays per day and had a list of more than 200 plays he had written. Cervantes called him the “monster of poetry.” In his works, he explored all kinds of topics, but his best-known works are the swashbuckling comedies and tragedies or dramas of honor.
His most known works are grouped into two blocks:
- National Issue Comedies: Fuenteovejuna, Peribañez and the Commander of Ocaña, etc.
- Invented Theme Comedies: La dama boba, or Dog in the Manger.
The style of Lope de Vega is characterized by naturalness. In his best works, the poetry is noted for its dramatic excitement. Lope de Vega manages to master the formal procedure in his plays, constantly playing with words. One of his best moves lies in the integration of popular and cultured elements.
One of the great works of Lope de Vega is Fuenteovejuna, a drama about a conflict between the people of Córdoba and their tyrant governor.
Fernán Gómez, Commander of the Order of Calatrava, pursues the mayor’s daughter of Fuenteovejuna. Her boyfriend defends her against the villainous commander, who decides to avenge the audacity of the young man. The commander mocks the village council, and later, while celebrating the wedding, he abuses her. The town council cannot reach an agreement on how to proceed. Ultimately, the people decide to kill the villain commander for his wrongful behavior.
4. Tirso de Molina.
Tirso de Molina is inserted in the school of Lope de Vega, with more originality and dramatic talent than other playwrights of his time.
From his works, it can be said that he wrote about 80 plays, most notably The Trickster of Seville and the Convicted Suspicious.
In the style of Tirso de Molina, we can see a theater with its own characteristics:
- Creating Characters: He draws characters so that they represent certain psychological traits and become role models.
- Comedy: His humor is often critical and biting, giving his work a strong satirical tone.
His style is also characterized by the contrast between the long poetic interventions of the actors and the taunts of the secondary characters. He highlights a moderate use of rhetorical figures, irony, dynamism, and a semblance of naturalness.
Tirso de Molina.
Tirso de Molina was born in Madrid and was a friar and theologian of the Order of the Grant. He became immersed in political intrigues, for which he was banished and forced to stop writing. He made many trips and was the author of an extensive theatrical production, among which highlights The Trickster of Seville, the home of the literary myth of Don Juan. He died in Soria in the middle of the seventeenth century.
5. Calderón de la Barca.
The work of Calderón de la Barca is divided into two stages:
The First Stage, in which he wrote courtesan and swashbuckling comedies, including The Dama Duende, and The Second Stage, in which he became a classic of his time and reached maturity as a playwright.
Belonging to this period are great tragedies such as Absalom’s Hair, The Mayor of Zalamea, El Tuzani of the Alpujarras, and his great work Life is a Dream.
The style of Calderón de la Barca is a translation of the dramatic system established by Lope de Vega. Its most characteristic features are:
Order in the structure, which enhances the unit of action by eliminating events and secondary characters. Hence, the importance gained by monologues as a characterization of the central character. He also emphasizes styling language and the growth of resources.