Valle-Inclán’s Radical Theater: A Thematic Analysis
Valle-Inclán: Radical Originality in 20th Century Spanish Theater
Valle-Inclán’s dramatic trajectory reveals a continuous pursuit of renewal and a formal and thematic break from the theater of his time. His work evolved to its maximum expression in the grotesque.
1st Group – Modernist Dramas
Modernism, applied to drama, crystallized into a symbolist aesthetic. Valle-Inclán’s poetic drama moved beyond symbolist theater by adding characters with realistic language and ironic attitudes. In his early works, such as The Marquis de Bradomín and The Wilderness of Souls, the theme of adultery in the 19th century is explored. The queen, ill, embodies the characteristics of a fin de siècle heroine.
2nd Group – Galician Dramas
Ramón Ruiz groups Barbaric Comedy, The Divine Words, and Bewitched under the name of a mythical cycle. These works are interconnected by themes, characters, and meaning, all set in a mythical and timeless Galicia. They depict an archaic society, with conflicts centered on lust, pride, cruelty, despotism, sin, sacrilege, superstition, and magic.
Barbaric Comedy
This trilogy, comprised of Eagle Crest, Romance of Wolves, and Square Face, dramatizes the tragedy of Montenegro. The characters embody basic human impulses and are driven by obscure motives.
3rd Group – Farces
Valle-Inclán authored four farces: The Marquesa Rosalinda, Child Farsa Dragon’s Head, Italian Farce of Love with the King, and Farce and Queen Castiza License. These works, mostly written in verse, introduce characters from show business, utilize costumes, and employ a play-within-a-play structure to disrupt the effect of stage reality.
La Marquesa Rosalinda
Considered a more recent work, it is an open critique of Spain, mocking its parochialism, institutions, and customs. It employs cinematographic techniques in theater.
The Queen Castiza
This work has more concrete historical and political implications, serving as a satire of the reign of Elizabeth II.
4th Group – The Grotesque
Valle-Inclán’s dramatic work culminates in the grotesque, which includes four of his works: Luces de Bohemia, Don Horns Friolera, Galas Deceased, and The Captain’s Daughter (the last three published under the title Mardi Gras). The grotesque distorts aspects of characters and situations, creating a caricatured, comic, and macabre vision.
Luces de Bohemia
First appearing in the weekly Spain in 1920 and published in book form in 1924, it recounts the last night of Max Estrella, a miserable and blind poet. This character is based on the death of novelist Alexander Sawa. It is the first work to receive the name of esperpento.
For Valle-Inclán, tragedy was too mild a genre to describe the situation in Spain at the time. He saw it as a grotesque distortion of European civilization, and the impossibility of tragedy led to the esperpento.
This new genre allowed the author to capture the reality of Spain. In the play, Valle-Inclán criticizes various aspects of the country, alluding to its imperial past and contemporary history. Through deliberate anachronisms, he presents a vision of Spain’s conflicts, bad government, and corruption, attacking capitalism and bourgeois conformism. He depicts the hunger and misery of the people, not idealized, but showing their ignorance and stupidity. He also protests against police repression, referencing the death of Catalan workers and the repression of street children. He criticizes traditional religion, empty schools, and literary institutions like the Royal Academy, as well as the late modernism of writers like Galdós, Villaespesa, and the Quintero brothers.
In conclusion, the work becomes a tragic and grotesque parable of the impossibility of living in a deformed, unjust, oppressive, and absurd Spain, a place where purity and honesty are absent.