Spanish theater of the second half of the 20th century

The Spanish Theater of the second half of the 20th century encompasses various phenomena of national drama with their own identity; in chronological order: the post-war theater, the independent theater (almost contemporary with the experimental theater), and the theater of the Transition. It evolved from existential anxieties to social concerns, and for almost forty years it had censorship as its implacable rival. One of the important achievements of the period was to stage with dignity the most ambitious proposals of the most notable playwrights of the fifty years. previous ones: García Lorca and Valle-Inclán. Among the greatest handicaps, the theater had to overcome, without being able to, the growing competition from the cinema and the superior theatricality of shows such as the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games or the Universal Exhibition of Seville (1992).

Allegory of contemporary Spanish theatre, the spirit of Blood balls turned into "national party."

The "Realist Generation"

Antonio Buero Vallejo and Alfonso Sastre have been accepted as referents of the dramaturgy of the second half of the XX century. In the shadow of both authors, various playwrights emerged from the second half of the 1950s, led by Lauro Olmo and José Martín Recuerda, who were grouped under the name of the "realist generation", although little or no. they had nothing to do with realism and, as a generational title, it was rejected by most of its supposed members. Some authors of this "realist generation" they preferred to call their realism, for example: Sastre, social realism; Buero, symbolist realism; Carlos Muñiz, expressionist realism; Alfredo Mañas and Lauro Olmo, popular realism; Martín Recuerda and the first Gómez Arcos, poetic (or Iberian) realism; leaving others without a surname such as: Rodríguez Méndez, Ricardo López Aranda, Antonio Gala, Jaime Salom, etc. Many of them, but not all, stayed away from avant-garde experiments and the theater of the absurd.

During that same period, and as in the past, many businessmen continued to support a friendly and superficial theater of escapism. Among the most favored along these lines were Ana Diosdado and Juan José Alonso Millán, whose "boulevard comedies" Started in the 1960s they continued to do box office in the seventies and eighties.

Portrait of Buero Vallejo (1916-2000)

Antonio Gala in 1989.

Alfonso Sastre in 2008.

Joan Brossa (1919-1998)

Experimental theater

Very late in the 1960s, theater began to develop with an experimental and avant-garde intention. To different degrees -and with different fortunes- they proposed their investigations: Fernando Arrabal, who had begun his career in exile, Francisco Nieva, who came to achieve notable successes from 1975, and Miguel Romero Esteo, a professor from Cordoba living in Malaga..

The pupils of this experimental theatre, cataloged by Georges E. Wellwarth, in his Spanish Underground Drama (Theatre of Protest and Paradox), were: José Ruibal, Antonio Martínez Ballesteros and José Bellido (as seeds); Luis Riaza, Alfonso Vallejo, Juan Antonio Castro, Jerónimo López Mozo, Manuel Martínez Mediero, Luis Matilla, Ángel García Pintado, Miguel Rellán, Eduardo Quiles; the exiles José Guevara and Martín Elizondo; in addition to a large representation of authors from the Catalan circle, including: Joan Brossa, Jordi Teixidor Martínez, Josep Maria Benet, Baltasar Porcel, Ricard Salvat, Manuel de Pedrolo, Xavier Romeu, Joan Soler, Joan Colomines, Feliu Formosa, Maria Aurèlia Capmany... Wellwarth's list is longer and has subsequently been considered biased.

Features

Some critical studies propose that the authors or playwrights of the so-called experimental theater coincide in some general characteristics such as:

1. they never knew how to form a homogeneous group;
2. they intended to offer a critical view of various aspects, morals, social and political, of the contemporary world;
3. In most cases, allegorical, symbolic and connotative procedures were used, often cryptic and difficult to interpret;
4. the desire to give their works a universal dimension, led them, more than once, to convert their characters, stripped of individualizing psychological traits, into incarnations of abstract ideas such as power, dictatorship, oppression, etc.;
5. In his theatre, the influences of Brecht, Piscator, Artaud, Grotowski, of surrealism, of expressionism, of the theater of absurdity, without abandoning the roots of a Spanish dramatic tradition that goes from the mes and the sacramental cars to the sperpent, the grotesque tragedy, the genre and the broad spectrum of the theater of varieties.

Independent groups

T.I.E.

Throughout the 1960s, numerous independent groups also emerged, such as Els Joglars, Los Goliardos, Tábano, Comediants, La Cuadra de Sevilla and many more. To which they joined, at the beginning of the 70s, Ditirambo Teatro Estudio, directed by Luis Vera Pró, and other groups.

Features

1. Research of dramatic language.
2. Ideological and aesthetic coherence.
3. Collective participation and search for quality.
4. Using the experience of each representation as a self-critical basis for recreation of themes and objectives.
5. Faced with the existing political regime.
6. Self-management, cooperativeness and rejection of commercial theatre.
7. The decentralizing objective of reaching wider audiences and getting the participation of the spectators also led them to take advantage of techniques typical of the farce, the pantomima, the puppet theatre, the circus, the cabaret and the musical comedy.

First act and Monleón

Already in the XXI century, the personal work of critic Pepe Monleón in coordinating and guiding the phenomenon has been recognized of the Spanish independent theater. Especially valuable has been his management of the Primer Acto magazine, as a broadcaster, analyst and sometimes advisor to independent groups such as Teatro Estudio Lebrijano, La Cuadra de Sevilla, Tábano, Los Goliardos, Comediants, Els Joglars, Esperpento or TEI. He is also considered one of the secrets responsible for the presence of independent theater in the international arena. Other interesting publications from this period were Pipirijaina, Yorick and El Público, all of them disappeared.

Return from exile

The poet and playwright Rafael Alberti, descending from the plane at Madrid-Barajas Airport in 1977.

The Spanish playwrights who went into exile after the war or later (Max Aub, León Felipe, Pedro Salinas, José Bergamín, Jacinto Grau, Rafael Dieste, etc.) generally stayed away from the stage Spanish people. His theatre, with the exception of the cases of Alejandro Casona, Rafael Alberti and especially Federico García Lorca, passed into oblivion after sporadic attempts to recover it.

Institutional theater

From 1975, in step with the socio-political changes in Spain, the theater was favored by various factors:

1. the disappearance of the Francoist censorship;
2. grants from the Central Administration and the governments of the autonomous communities;
3. the creation of a Teatral Documentation Centre (1983) and a National Center for New Performing Trends (1984), replacing the National Theatres established in the previous period;
4. and as a result of all this: the revitalization and development of Dramatic Art Schools, Theatre Festivals and, at least initially, the creation of editorials and magazines specializing in the dramatic phenomenon.

The cast of Life is sleepin the assembly of the National Classical Theatre Company.

However, the expected theatrical flowering did not take place. The invisibility of Spanish theater (the result of political circumstances in the central third of the XX century) it passed to a self-satisfied visibility, even more harmful, generating quantity rather than quality, selling "postmodern conjunctural avant-gardes" and that, finally, replaced the explosive need for expression of the sixties with the vice of expressing oneself with artistic pretensions.

Perhaps, the most fruitful tasks in the management of institutions, both nationally and regionally, were, rather than producers, reproducers, that is, creativity stagnated and self-sufficiency allowed, special attention was devoted to the most valuable information on the past and recent history of Spanish theater. The Classic Theater Festivals, generously subsidized, were able to promote the best pages of the classics at an international level.

And even more valuable was the task of the National Dramatic Center, encouraging the participation of professionals from very different theatrical categories in the staging of a selection of singular works, not only by Spanish authors but also of a universal nature. Writers, actors, set designers, costume designers or costume designers were admitted to the elite of stage directors, achieving original and surprising results. As an example, the assemblies of:

• Blood balls, by Federico García Lorca, directed by José Carlos Plaza in 2009, (coproduced with the Andalusian Theatre Center).
• Divine words, from Valle-Inclán, directed by Gerardo Vera in 2006, with Julieta Serrano and Alicia Hermida on stage.
• Doña Perfecta, by Benito Pérez Galdós, adapted and directed by Ernesto Caballero de las Heras (2012).
• Exercise for Balancers, by Luis Matilla, directed by Juan Margallo, both from the independent theater, in 1982.
• The Good Person of Sezuan, by Bertolt Brecht, in version of Jesus Munárriz and direction of Luis Blat (2006).
• The maidens, by Jean Genet and Armando Moreno adaptation (reposition in 1984 of the Victor García assembly in 1969 and with the same cast: Núria Espert, Julieta Serrano and Mayrata O'Wisiedo).
• Perséfoneof the Comediants group in 2011.
• Yerma, by Federico García Lorca, directed by Miguel Narros in 2013, with music by Enrique Morente.

Theater in Transition

Of the playwrights linked to the social current, more or less realistic, who began their careers in previous decades, only Antonio Buero Vallejo, Alfonso Sastre and Antonio Gala maintained a continuous presence on stage.

For their part, authors of the experimental theater that proliferated between 1968 and 1975, such as Joan Brossa, Alfonso Vallejo, José Ruibal, Luis Riaza, some of them temporarily exiled, had great difficulties in publicizing their productions.

Among the authors who began or consolidated their careers in these years of transition, while some such as Álvaro del Amo or Vicente Molina Foix remained faithful to avant-garde and innovative procedures, others such as Fermín Cabal, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Jesús Campos García and José Sanchís Sinisterra, mixed innovative techniques with traditional schemes of farce, farce, grotesque, comedy of customs, naturalist drama and poetic and fantastic realism.

Occasional Playwrights

The list of novelists, essayists, journalists and all kinds of intellectuals who sooner or later have practiced playwriting would be almost endless. As a perhaps random sample, it is worth noting the names of Carmen Martín Gaite, Eduardo Mendoza, Miguel Delibes, Javier Tomeo or Fernando Savater. Some of them contributed original proposals, and in the case of the literati, dramatic adaptations of their own production abounded.

Spanish performance

The Fura dels Baus, at the Singapore Festival (2007).

The best bets, like an echo of independent theatre, were launched by young companies with a new theatrical dimension. Finally, twenty years later, the shadow of the theater as a total spectacle and provocative exercise managed to permeate Spain. Among the best representatives of this aspect of experimental theater, we must mention the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus, active since 1979; His impressive productions are based, according to his own definition, on a popular urban theater approach (or teatre de fricció) that seeks a stage space other than the traditional one.

"80s Generation

Representation Persèfone by Els Comediants, National Dramatic Center, in 2011.

It has also been proposed to group authors born, in general, in the 1950s, and no longer linked to realism and symbolism.

Puppet theater

In the field of contemporary Spanish theater, it is interesting to note the interest that the most innovative artists showed in puppet theater. Beyond the survival of traditional companies in this genre, such as La Tía Norica from Cádiz or the Belem from Tirisiti de Alcoy, the puppet theater already had a development in the first half of the 20th century that reached unexpected artistic heights and influenced the approaches of other shows (dance and music, for example). Already studied by Gordon Craig or Meyerhold, puppets came to life in the hands of Valle-Inclán or García Lorca, in the same way that they had done beyond the borders in those of Maeterlinck, Alfred Jarry or Ghelderode.

From the first experiences of the Catalan modernists in Els Quatre Gats, or the reinventions of Valle-Inclán, Falla and Benavente himself, through the "Teatro Guiñol" From the Pedagogical Missions, puppets, which became popular with independent theater, evolved throughout the second half of the XX century in different dramatic offers, through Festivals, street theater shows and specialized companies such as La Claca (1968-1988) and Els Comediants, in Catalonia, or La Tartana, in Madrid, or Etcétera, in Granada.