Spanish Theater: Post-War Trends to Late 20th Century
Post-War Trends in Spanish Theater
The theater had two main functions: to entertain and to convey ideology. This took place in different ways:
- Refusal of theater by Lorca and Valle-Inclán.
- Premiere of works that emphasized the values of the victors.
- Programming of classics, vintage, and romance.
Spanish Theater in Exile
- Rafael Alberti continued to make political theater. Notable work: Night of War in the Prado Museum.
- Alejandro Casona: His best work is La Dama del Alba, where the lady referred to is death, which occurs in accounts receivable at a rural mansion.
- Max Aub: Important dramas written about Nazism, the war, and its consequences. Notable work: No.
Post-War Theater: Dramatic Tendencies
Bourgeois Comedy
It has the function to entertain and educate the public through the praise of virtue. Its features are:
- Perfect construction of the works, often divided into three acts.
- Normally, the subject is love.
- Characters belong to the bourgeoisie.
Notable authors: Calvo Sotelo and José María Pemán.
Humorous Theater
- Jardiel Poncela: His theatrical production is characterized as not credible, for his folly and for the mystery. Notable works: Eloise is Beneath an Almond Tree, Thieves are Honest People, and Four Hearts with Brake and Reverse.
- Miguel Miura: Works predominantly in the fantasy. His most prominent work is Three Top Hats, in which a representative of the bourgeoisie is in love with a woman who belongs to a crazy world.
Committed or Social Theater
It is a concerned, nonconformist theater that reaches the top of an existential current. Notable works:
- Story of a Stairway by Antonio Buero Vallejo.
- Condemned Squad by Alfonso Sastre.
- The Wild Bridge of San Gil by José Alfonso Sastre, whose theater reflects reality. In a straightforward story, it presents three generations of a family with their loves, their failures, their dreams, where the characters are weak. Condemned Squad is a drama with a lot of pessimism and is the author’s first step toward a theater that reflects social injustice.
Avant-Garde, Symbolist, and Heirs of Bourgeois Comedy
Avant-Garde
Notable authors: Fernando Arrabal and Francisco Nieva. The suburban theater is characterized by confusion, humor, terror, chance, and where the most frequent themes are religion, politics, love, sexuality, and death. Notable work by Arrabal: Automobile Graveyard. In Nieva’s work, the main theme is the representation of society, eroticism, and dark Spain. He criticizes society and religion.
Symbolist
With pessimism, it covers topics such as sexuality. Its language is vulgar, aggressive, and with physical and verbal violence. Notable author: Mediero with The Last Chicken.
Heirs of Bourgeois Comedy
It triumphed in the 1970s and is a theater that repeats the patterns of bourgeois comedies of the past with authors outside social circumstances. Notable authors: Alfonso Paso with Teach a Scoundrel and Millán with Cyanide: Alone or with Milk?
Independent Theater
Independent groups concerned with the formation of non-commercial actors. Its character is experimental and avant-garde. Notable groups: Tricicle, La Fura dels Baus, Els Joglars, where some of them mounted their spectacular shows on large ships that included violence.
Latest Dramas
The drama of the late 20th century has a realistic and formal aesthetic restoration. Notable authors: José Luis Alonso de Santos (Get off the Moor) and Fermín Cabal (Castles in the Air).