Three Top Hats: A Critical Analysis of Miguel Mihura’s Play
Summary of *Three Top Hats*
The argumentative thread of *Three Top Hats* revolves around the relationship between Dionysius and Paula. Dionysius is returning to his hometown to marry his first (and only) girlfriend, Margarita, a 25-year-old woman who is unattractive but virtuous and wealthy. Dionysius stays at a hotel where a group of dancers has arrived, among them Paula, a happy, beautiful, and carefree girl. A group of bourgeois gentlemen organizes an evening party where the contrast between the bourgeois world and the bohemian world will be established, reaching a point where the two merge into one. Paula shows her love to Dionysius, and he, somewhat late and drunk, does the same. At this point, Dionysius becomes doubtful between the monotonous and boring life he has led until then and a bohemian lifestyle that would break all his schemes. Finally, he succumbs to convention and goes to the wedding.
END OF THE WORK
Dionysius could have changed his life, been free and happy, but in the last act, events rush. The knock on the door and the emergence of Don Sacramento break the magic in which Dionysius has been involved throughout the night. His father’s speech, which expresses all the absurdity of a conventional, routine, and empty life, contrasts with the subsequent attempt by Dionysius and Paula to avoid being swept away by the inevitable. But while Dionysius is convinced that he has been defeated by the rules that have crushed him all his life and from which he dares not escape, Paula tries not to get carried away by the absurdity of existence and chooses to move forward. With this pessimistic and sad outcome, Mihura criticizes all those who choose to live by the imposed customs and conventions of bourgeois life.
The work shows the opposition of two worlds: the world of show business, characterized by freedom, joy, imagination, and the negation of rules, and the conventional world of the provincial bourgeoisie, which offers a dull, traditional marriage full of rules. Dionysius is attracted to the world without ties represented by Paula but eventually drifts to a traditional life, even though he knows that life will not make him happy.
Characters
Bourgeois World
- Dionysius: He is presented as a man excited and infatuated, symbolizing liberation and the breakdown of inhibitions. During the play, his character is freed from the conventions with which he has lived, gets drunk, and feels an impulse to love Paula. In the end, his weak personality returns him to the hard and monotonous bourgeois life. His name may have some relationship with the god Dionysus.
- Don Sacramento: Margarita’s father, a traditional and exemplary father, shows how a model marriage is a sacred institution where coexistence should reign.
Showbiz
- Paula: She is a ballet dancer for Buby Barton and is shown as a happy, beautiful, and carefree girl (she does not even know her age). Buby has to endure and accept relations with “hateful lords” (in this respect, she is a victim of society as well). In an attempt to change her world, she falls in love with Dionysius, but ultimately realizes she cannot change. According to the author himself: “She is the only one who is saved from everything around her and is the antithesis of Margarita and the ‘virtuous ladies’.”
- Buby: He leads a group of dancers and is a black music hall performer. He has a short affair with Paula, broken by her. He is presented as envious and sometimes violent (he beats Paula when she is with Dionysius). When he limits the work of the dancers to please the “gentlemen of the party,” he shows some greed.