Spanish theatre

“ And then recalling old memories, they forgot for a moment all about the distant South American republic and the phantom consul. Adios — a clasp of olive-skinned hands; and with the old-fashioned and tender commendation to God, they departed, never to meet again — as seabirds flying over the sea to opposite coasts look into each other's eyes a moment and pass on.
"I have been to your opera," he said, "I like it. But neither the French nor the Italians know what the Spanish theatre is. It is not merely music and drama. It is a school. It is a medium of national instruction. ”

“ The same impulse that made it so powerful in other respects filled the old Spanish theatre with an almost incredible number of cavalier and heroic dramas, dramas for saints, sacramental autos, entremeses, and farces of all names. Their whole amount, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, has been estimated to exceed thirty thousand, of which four thousand eight hundred by unknown authors had been, at one time, collected by a single person in Madrid. ”

“ At this opera-house one sees a perfect galaxy of dark, and, we may say, blazing beauty; for amidst the rich silks, the gorgeous satins, and the gay ribbons of all colours, brilliant with sparkling jewels, there shines out from every female face the yet brighter jewelry of large Spanish eyes flashing the quick emotions of the human soul as the music falls, stirring like a breeze, upon its chords. The number of uniforms, too, glowing from all parts of the great theatre, render the scene very gorgeous ”

“ The bull-ring is the amusement of Spain, but the theatre is well patronized. I always study the theatres of foreign countries when I get a chance, and the Spanish theatre is one of the most curious I have seen. The Opera or Teatro Real is the principal, and is patronized by the aristocracy. Gayarré is the star there at present. The Teatro Español is devoted to the legitimate drama. The other theatres which play operettas, farces, and topical reviews are the Apolo, the Princesa, the Variedades, the Lara, the Eslava (so called after a priest who left the money to build it) , and the Novedades. ”

“ The species in question, though in the invention of innumerable intrigues, of such a kind as the theatrical literature of all other countries can produce but few examples of it, it certainly shows astonishing acuteness, is, nevertheless, by no means the most valuable part of the Spanish theatre, which displays a much greater brilliancy in the handling of wonderful, mythological, or historical subjects. ”

“ The ground of the resemblance lies far deeper, in the inmost substance of the fictions, and in the essential relations, through which every deviation of form, becomes a true requisite, which, together with its validity, has also its significance. What they have in common with each other is the spirit of the romantic poetry, giving utterance to itself in a dramatic shape. However, to explain ourselves with due precision, the Spanish theatre, in our opinion, down to its decline and fall in the commencement of the eighteenth century, is almost entirely romantic ”

“ Spanish dancing is apparently what it was a hundred years ago; no wind from the north has disturbed it. Stranger still, it depends for its effect on the acquirement of a brilliant technique. Merely to play the castanets requires a severe tutelage. And yet it is all as spontaneous, as fresh, as unstudied, as vehement in its appeal, even to Spaniards, as it was in the beginning. Let us hope that Spain will have no artistic reawakening.
Aristotle and Havelock Ellis and Louis Sherwin have taught us that the theatre should be an outlet for suppressed desires. So, indeed, the ideal theatre should. ”

“ The most prominent, if not the most important, characteristic of the Spanish drama, at the period of its widest success, was its nationality. In all its various forms, including the religious plays, and in all its manifold subsidiary attractions, down to the recitation of old ballads and the exhibition of popular dances, it addressed itself more to the whole people of the country which produced it than any other theatre of modern times. ”

“ There are open-air concerts, and concerts in smoke-beclouded halls, greensward dances, and dances stepped on café tables among disordered clusters of bottles and glasses, and there is always the theatre, on which your Spaniard dotes.
In the winter season there is opportunity to enjoy classic drama at the Teatro Español, where the Bernhardt of Spain, "La Guerrero," supported by her grandee husband, Mendoza, holds sway. When I saw them they were using short farces of Cervantes and Lope de Rueda for curtain raisers to a romantic drama by Tirso de Molina and a modern society play by Echegaray. ”

“ That national art to which it had so faithfully clung had fallen into decline and decay with the spirit of Spain itself. By the time of the close of the great war, the theatre had sunk into a mere amusement of the populace, which during the greater part of the 18th century, while allowing the old masters the measure of favour which accords with traditional esteem, continued to uphold the representatives of the old drama in its degeneracy—authors on the level of their audiences. But the Spanish court was now The French school of the 18th century. ”

“ During the whole of this century, therefore, we may regard the theatre as a part of the popular character in Spain, and as having become, in the proper sense of the word, more truly a national theatre than any other that has been produced in modern times. ”

“ The eighteenth century, therefore, so far as the Spanish theatre is concerned, is entirely a period of revolution and change; and while, at its conclusion, we perceive that the old national drama can hardly hope to be restored to its ancient rights, it is equally plain that a drama founded on the doctrines taught by Luzan, and practised by the Moratins, is not destined to take its place. ”

“ It is always in the name of loyalty, conjugal fidelity, respect for his ancestors, and the honour of his name, that he draws his iron-hilted sword, frequently against those whom he loves with all his soul, and whom he is compelled by stern necessity to immolate. From this struggle of the passions with the point of honour springs the interest of most of the pieces of the old Spanish theatre, a profound and sympathetic interest keenly felt by the spectators, who in a similar position would not have acted otherwise than the personages of the drama. ”

“ As to the theatre itself, there can be no fear either that the imitation of foreign examples will satisfy Spanish dramatists—especially when, like the author of Doña Perfecta (Perez Galdos) , they have excellent home material of their own for adaptation,—or that the Spanish public itself, with fine actors and actresses still upholding the lofty traditions of the national drama, will remain too fatigued to consume the drama unless bit by bit—in the shape of zarzuelas and similar one-act confections. ”

“ The most considerable literary movement of the eighteenth century in Spain, and the one that best marks the poetical character of the entire period, is that relating to the theatre, which it was earnestly attempted to subject to the rules then prevailing on the French stage. Intimations of such a design are found in the reign of Philip the Fifth, as soon as the War of the Succession was closed. ”

“ Their invention is as remarkable as their abundance. Their drama and our own have affected the spirit and sometimes the substance of later literature more than any other. They have to a certain extent impregnated it. I have called the Spanish theatre a product of the soil, yet it must not be overlooked that Sophocles, Euripides, Plautus, and Terence had been translated into Spanish early in the sixteenth century, and that Lope de Rueda, its real founder, would willingly have followed classical models more closely had the public taste justified him in doing so. ”

“ He has the unique power of creating the daintiest heroines in the world—beautiful, appealing, tender and brave. He has the secret of communicating emotion, of inventing dialogue, always appropriate, and he is ever prompt to enliven it with a delicate humour, humane and debonair. He has not merely enriched Spain: in some degree not yet precisely known—for the history of comparative literature is in its infancy—he has contributed to almost every theatre in Europe. ”

“ The frequenters of the place are not very particular about the uses to which they turn the walls of the corridor, but, by hermetically sealing our noses, we reached our places not more than half suffocated. When I add that smoking is perpetually practised between the acts, the reader will not have a very fragrant idea of a Spanish theatre.
The interior of the house is, however, more comfortable than the approaches to it promise; the boxes are tolerably arranged, and although the decorations are simple, they are fresh and clean. ”

“ The duties of the poet were gradually more rigorously laid down, under a belief in the authority of the ancients, and the infallibility of Aristotle. By their own inclination, however, the poets were led to the Spanish theatre, as long as the Dramatic Art in France, under a native education, had not attained its full maturity. They not only imitated the Spaniards, but, from this mine of ingenious invention, even borrowed largely and directly. I do not merely allude to the earlier times under Richelieu; this state of things continued through the whole of the first half of the age of Louis XIV. ”

“ Spanish children share the love of the theatre which belongs to their elders. At the afternoon performances, which are given on every Sunday and fiestas, half the house is occupied by child ticket-holders, whose interest in the action of the piece is astonishing. They applaud with cries of “bonito”; they ask questions, and the house is never still for a single instant. ”

“ The Spanish theatre, though the influence of Seneca is apparent in the form it put on, is more sincerely a growth of the soil than any other of modern times, and it has one interesting analogy with our own in the introduction of the clown into tragedy, whether by way of foil or parody. ”

“ Hence it is clear that the mutual literary debt of Spain and France is, at this early stage, unequally divided. Spain, like [42] the rest of the world, borrows freely; but, with the course of time, the position is reversed. Molière, the two Corneilles, Rotrou, Sorel, Scarron, and Le Sage, to mention but a few eminent names at hazard, readjust the balance in favour of Spain; and the inexhaustible resources of the Spanish theatre, which supply the arrangements of scores of minor French dramatists, are but a small part of the literature whose details are our present concern. ”

“ The drama in Spain has in all times occupied an important place. The traditions of the past names, such as Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Moreto, and others, cannot exactly be said to be kept up, for these are, most of them, of European fame; but in a country where the theatre is the beloved entertainment of all classes, {241}and perhaps especially so of the poor or the working people, there are never wanting dramatists who satisfy the needs of their auditors, and whose works are sometimes translated into foreign languages, if not actually acted on an alien stage. ”

“ Moratin published three Discourses, which he entitled, 'Exposition of the Misconceptions of the Spanish Theatre,' written with the good judgement of a man of taste, and with the zeal of a citizen interested in the progression and literary glory of his country. In the first he showed the defects in which the old plays abounded; as also the modern, with which poets, without rule or plan, supplied the players, sanctioning every time more irregularity and ignorance. ”

“ The monotony and artifice of his sacramental plays might be thought inherent to the species, were not these two notes characteristic of his whole theatre. Nor is it an explanation to say that much writing of autos had affected his general methods; for not merely are the secular plays more numerous—they are also mostly earlier than the autos, whose real defects are a lack of dramatic interest, an appeal to a taste so local and so temporary that they are now as extinct in Spain as are masques in England. ”

“ To the auto sacramental corresponds the auto al nacimiento, or drama of the Nativity. In Spain, as elsewhere, the secular theatre is a product of the religious theatre. Expelled from the Church, the juegos de tscarnios took possession of the public squares and there attained free development; ceasing to be a mere travesty of dogma, they developed into a drama whose movement is no longer determined by the liturgy, and whose actors are borrowed from real life in Spanish society. ”

“ Every thing, indeed, that we know about the mosqueteros shows that their influence was great at the theatre in the theatre’s best days. In the eighteenth century we shall find it governing every thing.
[748] Aarsens, Relation, p. 59. Zavaleta, Dia de Fiesta por la Tarde, Madrid, 1660, 12mo, pp. 4, 8, 9. C. Pellicer, Tom. I. Mad. d’Aulnoy, Tom. III. p. 22.
[749] Guillen de Castro, “Mal Casadas de Valencia,” Jorn. II. It may be worth notice, perhaps, that the traditions of the Spanish theatre are still true to its origin;—aposentos, or apartments, being still the name for the boxes ”