Spanish Drama Before 1939: Trends and Key Authors
Spanish Drama Up To 1939
Spanish theater of the twentieth century, with the exception of Valle-Inclán and Lorca, is quite poor, both in theater and in the dramatic, without being involved in innovations in European theater. In the reporting period, drama has two models: one that wins, which has the support of the public, and another that does not achieve success despite its superior literary value.
Popular Theater
Popular theater includes three trends:
- Bourgeois Drama: Realistic and gently critical. This is a continuation of the realistic drama of the nineteenth century, renewing some aspects to suit the tastes of the bourgeois public. Its chief deputy is Jacinto Benavente (*Vested Interests*, *The Malquerida*).
- Theater of Manners: Of the romantic and unpretentious criticism; its sole purpose is to entertain the public. Within this trend fall the brothers Alvarez Quintero, representatives of the Andalusian regional theater (*The Gay Genius*), Carlos Arniches, regional authorities of Madrid and creator of the grotesque tragedy (*Miss Trevélez*), and Pedro Muñoz Seca, inventor of Astrakhan parody in verse of the romantic drama (*Don Mendo’s Revenge*).
- Modernist Poetic Theater: With strongly conservative and traditional ideology, with constant allusions to the glorious past of the Spanish Empire. This trend is represented by authors such as Eduardo Marquina and Francisco Villaespesa.
Innovative Theatrical Trends
Facing the rise of this theater, other innovative and interesting trends in literary emerged, but did not succeed because they are tailored to the tastes of the public. We can talk of two theatrical experiences: the theater of the Generation of ’98 and Novecentismo (Unamuno, Azorín, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Jacinto Grau), and the Theater of the Generation of ’27 (Salinas, Max Aub, Alberti, Miguel Hernández), to which Miguel Mihura and Enrique Jardiel Poncela should be added, renovating the theater of humor.
Key Authors: Valle-Inclán and Lorca
Each of these two groups is headed by a key author: Valle-Inclán, the first, and Lorca, the second.
Valle-Inclán
Valle-Inclán is the most important author of Spanish drama of the century, and one of the key global players. His work is a constant evolution until his great creation: the *esperpento*, a grotesque and distorted vision of reality, precisely to discover its most profound aspects.
García Lorca
García Lorca is the main reference work of the Generation of ’27. His theatrical work is equally varied, full of lyrical and surrealist elements. In his dramatic works, there are three stages:
- Initial Stage (1920s): Characterized by formal experimentation and thematic exploration. Lorca still looks for his own dramatic and theatrical language. Evidence of this stage: *The Curse of the Butterfly* (symbolic), *Mariana Pineda* (historical drama in verse), *Love of Don Perlimplín with Belisa in His Garden* (tragic love farce). The most important work of this stage is *The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife*, which anticipates elements of his later work, such as the mixture of verse and prose.
- Avant-garde/Surrealist Stage (Early 1930s): Includes two works: *The Public* and *If Five Years Pass*.
- Stage of Fullness (1933-1936): Lorca is very prolific and achieves great success with his works, which are capable of combining aesthetic rigor with popular appeal. The first two works of this phase include *Blood Wedding* (1933) and *Yerma* (1934), which may be part of a dramatic trilogy of the Spanish land next to the unpublished and unfinished *Blood Has No Voice*. Later works include *Doña Rosita the Spinster* (1935) and *The House of Bernarda Alba* (1936), which distance themselves from the former due to their political and social dimension.