There is a long theatre tradition in Almagro. As the seat of the Order of Calatrava, in the 16th and 17th Centuries it was an important artistic and cultural hub, as evidenced by the presence of the university, founded by the Order’s castle warden, Fernando Fernández de Córdoba.
Visitors can learn about the evolution of the theatre in Almagro from the Golden Age up to the present by visiting the Corral de Comedias. Well-preserved and maintaining its authentic atmosphere, it remains in use with performances every weekend by classical playwrights, and has also served as the grounds for holding the International Classical Theatre Festival every July. Plays are performed by prestigious theatre companies every day during the festival at several venues (there were as many as 20 different spaces in the 30th Edition of the Festival). Then there is also the Teatro Municipal, from the late 19th Century, built with the aim of offering cultural opportunities to young people and maintaining the theatre tradition in this city. At the Teatro Municipal, in addition to all types of theatre productions (in November the International Contemporary Theatre Festival is held), other types of performances were also held in the past – and continue to this day – such as opera, zarzuela, dance, film and concerts. On top of this, the Museo Nacional del Teatro is also located in Almagro, where one can take a stroll through the history of theatre: performance centres, genres, authors, actors and technicians, to name a few. Its collection of models, costume designs, costumes and so on, is remarkable.
The visit begins with Greek and Roman theatre from the 4th Century B.C. to the 6th Century A.D., which basically can be grouped into two main genres: Tragedy (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes) and Comedy (Aristophanes and Menander). In Spain, some outstanding examples of such theatres are those of Mérida (it has been used for performances since 1933 and is the origin of one of the most prestigious theatre festivals in Spain), Sagunto, Itálica and Segóbriga.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, this classical culture was lost. Later, theatre in the Middle Ages was focused on two religious holidays: Christmas and Easter. Scenes from the life of Christ were often reenacted near the altar at the end of religious ceremonies. Secular elements, unrelated to religion, were gradually incorporated into these scenes, becoming authentic theatre performances that were later held in the church vestibules. In the end, the secular elements outweighed the religious ones, and theatre became entertainment for the people, enacted in public squares by this time. “La Festa” or “Misteri d’Elx” represents one of the crucial pieces of European religious theatre from Medieval times, and is held every year on 14 and 15 August inside the Basílica de Santa María, in the city of Elche. The play is inspired by several texts taken from the Apocrypha, which were highly popular in the Middle Ages, and it describes the Death, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin Mary. This is the only play in this genre that has been represented continuously up to the present era. The play by Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina, must also be noted, which, according to scholars, was performed from 21 May to 21 June 1499.
The break with the past in the Middle Ages is so absolute that, architecturally, the theatre no longer existed. The first itinerant theatre companies stopped performing in town squares and began putting on their plays in inner courtyards of homes and inns, enclosed areas in which it was easier to charge admission. Hence, in the Golden Age, the first structures were built for theatre performances, and they were similar to these corrals in shape. Such is the case of the Corral de Comedias in Almagro.
After paying for admission, the audience occupied the balconies, windows and stands that were distributed on three sides of the corral. The men crowded into the courtyard below. The women of the village were seated in the upper balcony, opposite the stage, known as the “cazuela”. On the stage, which occupied the back of the courtyard, there was hardly any backdrop, but the comedians’ words transported the spectators to the setting of the action. These corral theatres were filled with works by the great playwrights of this Golden Age: Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca, to name a few.
For various reasons, these “comedy corrals” fell out of use and modern theatres, known as “Italian style theatres”, began to be built. Here, in addition to plays, musical performances (such as opera, zarzuela, variety shows…) were also held. Following this model, in Almagro, the Teatro Municipal was built in 1863 by the provincial architect, Cirilo Vara.
In the 18th Century, the Enlightenment desire for reform also extended to theatre, seeking spontaneity on stage, which was applied by the best playwright of the century in Spain, Leandro Fernández de Moratín. In accordance with these postulates, Moratín wrote “El sí de las niñas” (The Maidens’ Consent), “La comedia nueva” (The New Comedy) and “El café” (The Cafe), to name a few.
The works most widely applauded by the public pertained to the genres of magical comedies, heroic comedies, sentimental comedies and the “sainete” (farce), whose best representative was Ramón de la Cruz. Motivated by a desire to moralise before contemporary society, he chose this genre in an attempt to change society’s attitudes and defects through the theatre. Most of his productions were of a highly Costumbrist and superficial nature, despite the technical perfection of his dramatic construction.
The 19th Century is the era of Romantic theatre, which attempted to portray man, the world and history; its most characteristic genres are tragedy and melodrama. The best symbol of Romantic theatre is the opera genre that developed in that century. However, as opera did not take root in Spain, the most successful musical genre here was zarzuela. This is the theatre of complex intrigue, ghosts, enchanted forests, grand ruins, poison, moonlight and, of course, love and death. New technical inventions arose: gas, electricity, projectors, steam engines, lifts, rotating stages, etc., which were incorporated into the melodrama productions. Theatres competed to achieve the most sensational stage effects in their shows. Decorators and sceneshifters became the true stars. In other words, visual effects predominated, to the detriment of theatrical drama.
In Spain, Romantic theatre was modelled after French theatre, and Romantic Spanish playwrights produced works that imitated the French ones. Don Álvaro, o la fuerza del sino by Duque de Rivas, and Don Juan Tenorio by Zorrilla are two examples of this type of theatre.
In the early 20th Century, theatre companies were creating conventional, conservative works in order to please the public. Prior to 1936, the greatest theatrical successes pertained to three highly popular genres: Costumbrist comedy (Jacinto Benavente), the Madrid-style “sainete” (Carlos Arniches) or Andalusian-style “sainete” (the Álvarez Quintero brothers) and slapstick humour (Pedro Muñoz Seca). Zarzuela took refuge in a pleasant, sweetened vision of reality and sentimentalism prevailed over the issues, which became increasingly entrenched in traditional customs and regionalism.
There is a long theatre tradition in Almagro. As the seat of the Order of Calatrava, in the 16th and 17th Centuries it was an important artistic and cultural hub, as evidenced by the presence of the university, founded by the Order’s castle warden, Fernando Fernández de Córdoba.
Authors and directors who had ambitions beyond mere commercial success sought other means of staging their works, outside of the mainstream theatre circuit. Based in the Eslava theatre of Madrid, the writer and stage director, Gregorio Martínez Sierra, undertook an artistic reformation of the theatre show, with support from the best writers (Marquina, Ibsen, Dumas, Molière, Zorrilla...), set designers and painters (Fontanals, Barradas, Zamora, Burman, Vilumara, Ontañon, Penagos....) and musicians (Falla, Turina, Luna, ...) and with Catalina Bárcena as the leading actress of his Compañía Cómico Dramática (Comic Dramatic Company). Among these theatre forms classified within the early avant-garde, the work of university theatres or groups must be highlighted, such as “La Barraca” (The Shack) by Federico García Lorca, “El Caracol” (The Snail) by Valle-Inclán and “El Mirlo Blanco” (The White Blackbird) by Baroja. Thus, an attempt was made to counteract the repertoire theatre filled by Echegaray and his followers, magazine-like zarzuelas, variety shows and other poor quality shows, Costumbrist “sainetes” with superficial dialogues, which coexisted with the dignity of works by Benavente or Pérez Galdós.
Another important genre within the Spanish musical theatre category is the “género chico” (literally, small genre, or performances by the hour), which was characteristic for having simple plots, being short in length and having content of little significance, although it has given us masterpieces such as La verbena de la paloma, La revoltosa and El dúo de la africana. Most of the works in the “género chico” are Costumbrist.
In 1911, the Trianon Palace was opened in Madrid, and the variety song became highly popular at that time, as well as more general genre, the so-called “género frívolo” (literally, frivolous genre, or variety shows). The lyrics in the songs, characterised for their risqué, if not openly erotic, tone, were accompanied by suggestive movements by the performers, who were often dressed in very bold costumes. The lyrics, music, sinuous movements and scandalous little outfits produced much pleasure and passion among the audience. Madrid was conquered by and for the variety song.
Prior to 1936, theatre was an authentic “national vice”, which led to numerous venues and plays being opened by writers, and actors and actresses becoming highly popular. After the Spanish Civil War ended and theatre activities were reorganised, a long list of creators participated in the activity: writers, directors, actors, set designers, costume designers, technicians, etc., who changed Spain’s stage reality and helped modernise it.
EIn 1952, the Ministry of Information and Tourism created the Festivales de España (Festivals of Spain), based on the festivals of Santander and Granada, in an effort to take all kinds of theatre, zarzuela, opera and dance performances to every corner of Spain at least once a year. To do this, they set out to discover unique spaces: cathedral façades, historical gardens, castles and so on, thereby fulfilling a desire not only to recover these solemn spaces but also to perform before them texts from the Golden Age of Spanish literature.
José Tamayo, together with other directors and entrepreneurs, was the best example of these performances.
Source: Museo Nacional de Teatro
