Lorca and the Spanish Theatre

Abstract

In 1930 one of Spain’s leading editors and critics wrote, ‘Probably the only contemporary writer who holds any authority over the public is Benavente. His works might not please the opening night critics, but he is allowed to say anything he wants to say and in whatever form he chooses.’¹ The extraordinary intelligence and productivity of the Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Jacinto Benavente (1866–1954), enabled him virtually to dominate the commercial theatre in Spain for over three decades. Benavente’s own ascent had begun just at the turn of the century when another Nobel Prize-winner, José de Echegaray, enjoyed the same public adulation and box office success that Benavente was soon to attain. Echegaray’s tendentious verse melodramas whose sensationalistic treatments of such themes as alcoholism, incest, adultery and madness always justified themselves with the conventionality of their moral view, gave way in a relatively short time to Benavente’s far more sophisticated, polished and witty comedies and tragi-comedies that began to capture the attention of the wealthy and conservative urban bourgeoisie.