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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
He baulked at Echegaray’s exaggerated style, instead writing witty, drawing
room satire that subtly lampooned society, particularly the bourgeoisie and
aristocracy. Benavente is credited with reinvigorating literary Spanish drama
virtually single-handed, finding both commercial and critical success.
Nothing would rival his work until Lorca appeared.Los intereses creados
(1907), Benavente’s 53rdplay, is regarded as his best. Set in an imaginary
location in the early 17thcentury, its core message is that all men are
corruptible. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922.
Waiting for Lorca: early 20th century drama
Despite the efforts of Benavente, Spanish theatre was limping along by
the 1920s. His plays now seemed passé and the confused, politicised work
that infiltrated drama in the early 20thcentury couldn’t distract audiences
from light entertainment, itself beginning to suffer in competition with
cinema. Valle-Inclán continued to try, developing theesperpentosgenre
with its grotesque distortions of normal characters. Farce was popular in the
1920s. One writing double act found particular success: Pedro Pérez
Fernández and Pedro Muñoz Seca developed theastracanadagenre that
still entertains Madrid audiences today with its comic misunderstandings.
The latter Pedro shared a similar fate to the period’s greatest playwright,
Federico García Lorca, when he was executed early in the Civil War, albeit
by a different side. Fernandez had Nationalist sympathies, while Lorca
championed the Republic. (See section 2.1.5. for more on Lorca’s life.)
Lorca’s legend is well founded. His was the inspiration Spanish drama had
waited for – a rare talent that found both literary and commercial success.
He set his plays among Spain’s rural poor, exploring the restraints that
poverty, social order and gender placed on the lives of individuals. He
tackled elemental themes – love, loss, violence – but did so with delicate,
suggestive language. Early on he wrote gentle farce: the lyrical poetry of
La Zapatera Prodigiosa(c.1930), about a downtrodden cobbler and his lairy
wife, hinted at the mature work to come.Three tragedies, the so-called
‘rural trilogy’, later cemented his reputation.
