Spanish Theater Before the Civil War: Trends and Renewal
PRIOR TO THE THEATRE THE Civil War
During the period preceding the Spanish Civil War there was a marked sense of crisis as the demographics, economics and mentality were in full decline, it was losing the idea of freedom. Meanwhile in Europe, fascism and begin renovation proposals hardline.
The theater scene began to be characterized by attempts to renew and the realistic drama, the Spanish were influenced mainly by European authors such as D’Anunzzio, Ibsen, and Wilde.
First, we must mention the commercial theater, which came with some trends that were very successful in the hands of Jacinto Benavente, theater and comedy and drama in verse.
Also include some attempts to renewal by Jacinto Grau, Miguel de Unamuno, Azorín, Valle-Inclan, and Garcia Lorca.
Jacinto Benavente was based on a theme related work always with the bourgeoisie, as this was its regulars. He saw the theater as an instrument of illusion and evasion where the dialogue was natural and fluid. His work is classified in bourgeois interiors citizens, cosmopolitan interior, interior provinces, and rural interior. Among his works are vested interests, situated in the field of the farcical and developing the theme of money and power that comes with having it as well as the unloved, this is the honor in rural dramas, trying to play the popular speech and struggle between passion and its prohibition.
The comic theater was looking for public entertainment, within that other sub-genres were born such as the operetta, l to magazine, vaudeville, the toy comedian, vaudeville, or Astrakhan, some of them accompanied by elements of poetry as music or dance. Authors emphasized as the brothers Alvarez Quintero, who tried an illusion Andalusia and irony, always reflecting life with a simple action, one of his works was Mariquita Terremoto.
Pedro Muñoz Seca, creator of Astrakhan, more than three hundred works premiered between highlighting Don Mendo’s Revenge, and The Extremadura meet.
Carlos Arniches, however, addressed the broad farce and grotesque tragedy, which was his way to report to the national reality, wrote Miss Trevelez and Los caciques.
Attempts to renew the theater, as mentioned above, highlights the theater naked de Unamuno, which involved reducing the characters to a minimum, creating a dramatic bare essentials and thus creating, in method of knowledge. He wrote works like Raquel Soledad and chained, or Brother John.
The Azorín antirealism was characterized by experimentation, as well as its natural appearance, including the subconscious and the fantastical. His most important work was the trilogy The invisible.
Valle-Inclán cultivated a technique that sought to break with the theater of his time. His work can be divided into four stages;
- early dramatic: decadent dramas, this drama was based on a poetic rebel and realistic, his most important works of this period were the Marquis de Bradomin, and the wilderness of souls.
- In its second stage dramas wrote Galician environment, related by their themes and characters developed in a mythical and timeless Galicia, full of lust, pride, cruelty, sin, magic and despotism. Belong to this stage barbaric and Divine Comedy words.
- He also wrote farces in which celebrity introduces characters using costumes and looking for the effect of actually breaking the stage, wrote La Marquesa Rosalinda, The dragon’s head, The love of the King and Queen typical.
- Finally, we also cultivated the grotesque, misshapen certain aspects of the character and situations, producing a vision cartoon, comic macabre scarecrows stand between these two; Luces de bohemia and Mardi Gras.
Lorca was a great show scene full of poetry, his dramatic and d express the problems of life and history, dropping largely as connotations. His plays can be divided into three stages;
- I n the first place are the first dramas and farces, where he cultivated a modernist theater, presents the ideal of perfection is confronted with everyday. Its four sham marriage conflict developed between the old and the young (,). He also wrote several farces for puppet and other works such as The Shoemaker’s Prodigious or Tragicomedy of Don Cristobal and Rosita Sena.
- Secondly we find the comedies “impossible” in them developing a surrealist influence also anticipating the breaking of space-time logic, giving the possibility of multiple interpretations of his works among which are So Five Years Pass, The Comedy untitled public.
- Finally, include the tragedies, which develops some stories in a rural environment where the target always takes precedence in a tragic way, giving special importance to many characters. Highlight Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba, these are three of the most significant works in the history of Spanish theater, develop a principle of freedom where the argument is unimportant.