Social criticism of Luces de Bohemia by Valle-Inclán

Social Criticism of "Luces de Bohemia" or "Bohemian Lights" by Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan

A number of influential Spanish playwrights were active during the early part of the 20th century, including Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan who invented a new dramatic device that he termed "esperpento" in his play, "Luces de Bohemia" or "Bohemian Lights." Originally published in 1920, this play about the people of the City of Madrid was not actually produced until 1963, but Valle-Inclan's other major contributions to dramatic literature include Divinas palabras and the three Comedias barbaras, but most authorities agree that "Luces de Bohemia" is Valle-Inclan's masterpiece. To gain some fresh insights into the delayed production of this play and the social criticism that it generated at the time as well as the time, space and historical moment in which it was created, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature concerning Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclan's play, "Bohemian Lights," followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Synopsis of Luces de Bohemia

'the cinema speaks only to our eyes', Ramon del Valle-Inclan wrote in 1922 (quoted in Parsons at 87). In 1924, Valle-Inclan would go on to describe the twilight world of an "impoverished, bohemian Madrid in a play dominated by images and metaphors of vision" in his play, Luces de Bohemia ("Bohemian Lights," 1920). The play is set in a "Madrid absurd, brilliant and hungry" [un Madrid absurdo, brillante y hambriento], and the entire play transpires over the course of a single evening, "amidst the fetid urban map of a turn-of-the-century city prior to the construction of the Gran Via. Beginning at twilight, it follows the blind and destitute poet Maximo Estrella as he journeys through a series of progressively sordid city sites, in search of money that is owed to him, before his death from alcohol and hypothermia in the early hours of the following morning" (Parsons 87).

The play's protagonist, the blind poet Maximo Estrella, is perhaps Valle-Inclan's most autobiographical character, although critics have also pointed out close, intentional resemblances between the character and writer Alejandro Sawa. Max Estrella is described as the premiere poet in Spain, though ignored by the Academy and scorned by the press. He is a compelling figure, despite what most critics see as an absence of psychological development. John P. Gabriele, however, finds a basis for psychological analysis of the character beyond his archetypal qualities (Gabriele 659 -- 60).

The opening scene introduces Max, his wife, and daughter, all starving in a garret, his writing unappreciated by publishers. His friend Don Latino was to have sold some books for him but could not get a decent price, so he asks Max to go with him. At the bookseller's shop, they discuss Spain's problems but get nothing more for the books. Max and Latino head for the tavern. Max pawns his cloak to buy drinks. The sounds of rioting workers are heard from the street. Later that night Max and Latino stagger drunkenly under the broken street lamps seeking the streetwalker who appropriated Max's lottery ticket (Parker 468).

A police patrol takes Max for an anarchist and they arrest him. Latino and the habitues of the Modernist Cafe accompany him to police headquarters where Max's irreverent jibes antagonize the officer. He is placed in a cell with a Catalan political prisoner, and the two commiserate about social conditions until the prisoner is taken out, presumably to be killed. Scene 7 is set in the office of a populist newspaper; Latino has come to stir up a protest against Max's arrest, but the scene is largely an excuse for satiric commentary on the press and the government as well as artistic and proletarian movements. Having been set free, Max goes to the Minister of Internal Affairs, an old friend, to call attention to the injustice of his unprovoked arrest. The Minister offers him a pension, which the starving Max realizes he must accept. There is a grotesque quality to the embrace of the ragged and blind but dignified poet by the overweight, foppish Minister who presses money into his hand (Parker 468).

Latino leads Max to an expensive cafe, where Max treats him and poet Ruben Dario to dinner; their drinking yields them a shared vision of Paris. Later, in a moonlit park Max and Latino encounter two streetwalkers. In the next scene they reach a street where broken glass, bullet marks, and a mother carrying a dead child give evidence of a recent riot. Overcome by the senselessness and futility of such conditions, Max asks Latino to lead him home. They arrive at Max's doorstep at daybreak, and here it is that Max describes Spain as an esperpento. Max dies, and Latino relieves him of his wallet (Parker 468).

Latino shows up soddenly drunk for the funeral gathering in the garret where Max's wife and daughter live. Other grotesque figures arrive until finally all are convinced -- in a sequence that is both farcical and poignant -- that Max Estrella is truly dead. A scene at the cemetery provides opportunity for a discussion by the gravediggers of conditions in Spain, but Ruben Dario and the Marques de Bradomin become ego-involved in talking of their own writing. At the tavern Don Latino spends extravagantly, having won a great deal of money with the lottery ticket that was in Max's wallet. News arrives that Max's wife and daughter have committed suicide (Parker 468). According to this authority, "The tavernkeeper notes that Don Latino with his lottery ticket could have saved them from starvation. Boasting of his great-heartedness, Latino asserts that of course he would have helped them. But alas, the world is skewed. it's all an esperpento" (Parker 468). Not surprisingly, Bohemia Lights garnered its fair share of social criticism in response, and these issues are discussed further below.

Social Criticism of Luces de Bohemia

According to one authority, "The social criticism of Valle-Inclan's Luces de Bohemia has been evident to all its readers, and the mocking of the modernists and the exaggerated aesthetics of frivolity has been amply commented upon. But the esperpento can also be read as a perfect fusion of those two critical themes. The work is a demonstration of the impossibility of art in an age of anonymous, impersonal, bureaucratic violence" (Weber 575). Likewise, citing Valle-Inclan's emphasis on incorporating elements of a "stylized, mythic past as a means of evoking an essence or ideal," Lyon considers Bohemian Lights as "a descent into hell for the self-consciously aristocratic author. It is a criticism of the anti-heroic, life-reducing aspects of modern existence which trivialize even what is noble and generous" (108). Moreover, Foster (1999) maintains that "Bohemian Lights" also contains some homophobic remarks that were characteristic of the times, including "the conservative members of the youth of Accion Ciudadana are called "faggots" several times, suffragettes are called marimachos (butch), and secret policemen have moles -- a typical mark of homosexuality in other Valle texts" (172).

By contrast, other authorities weigh in on the social criticism contained in "Bohemian Lights" by pointing to the manner in which Valle-Inclan depicted the downward spiral of the story's protagonist as being most salient. For example, Ugarte suggests that, "Luces de bohemia is the first work of Spanish literature in which the traditional hero journeys toward self-effacement (or so one might interpret Max Estrella's Dante-esque pilgrimage toward death) in order to give way to a collective as central character" (466). In this regard, Parker (2002) concurs with this assessment but adds, "Other critics have explored the play's topical, literary, historical, and site-specific references. Among these are Allen W. Phillips's study of the literary context, Zamora Vicente's tracking of personalities on which the characters are based (La realidad esperpentica 30 -- 56) and his comments on the mirrors of Cat Alley that figure in Max's formulation of esperpentismo (Zamora 310 -- 313). A number of studies have identified the literary influences of writers such as Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Maeterlink. Fernando Ponce offers specific examples of social protest in the play" (468). In reality, there was plenty to protest about during the first part of the 20th century in Europe in general and in Spain in particular, and these issues are discussed further below.

His Environment: Time, Space and Historical Moment

The fin de siecle in Europe was a turbulent period in history, with radical changes being introduced in social thinking that would have profound implications for the continent's political leadership, as well as the theatrical offerings that would emerge in response. It was in this environment that Valle-Inclan found himself during his formative years. According to one biographer, "In 1892, before finishing his studies in law, Valle-Inclan moved to Mexico. When he returned to Spain a year later, he lived a bohemian life in Madrid. He resided in old guest houses and practically never left the cafes, going out at night and sleeping during the day" (Bohemian Lights 2). During this period in history, there was a concomitant growth in interest in the emerging cinemagraphic realm. According to Parsons (2003), "Coincident with the growing avant-garde fascination with silent film, cinema was becoming the ultimate embodiment of modern mass culture" (90).

The "modern mass culture" that was emerging in Europe at this time was a reactionary one that became known as a bohemian lifestyle that was personified by Valle-Inclan. In this regard, his biographer emphasizes that, "His behavior at the time showed contempt for the rational world of the bourgeoisie. He changed his appearance substantially, letting his beard and hair grow. He wore large tortoiseshell- rimmed glasses and very loose clothing, like a frock coat. People would stare and sometimes make fun of him. Occasionally he lost his temper, but never his arrogant attitude" (Bohemian Lights 2). Moreover, Valle-Inclan experienced his fair share of misfortune and tragedy during these formative years that would have life-changing implications. For instance, his biographer adds that, "With his high-pitched voice and a lisp, he monopolized attention, making up stories about himself or others and reacting violently to interruptions. Yet he impressed those who knew him well as a kind, shy man. A dispute with a journalist in 1899 led to his left wrist being injured; gangrene set in, and his arm had to be amputated" (Bohemian Lights 3).

This physical and emotional setback, though, did not stop him from writing and he went on to publish a number of works in the succeeding years. In this regard, originally published as a weekly serial in Espana from July 31 to October 23, 1920 and in a revised version in Opera Ominia 19 in Madrid in 1924, "Luces de bohemia" or "Bohemian lights" was not actually produced until 1963; at that time, the Theatre National Populaire in Paris presented it in French for the International Theatre Festival (Parker 466).

The Spanish premiere of the play took place in Madrid's Teatro Bellas Artes, under the direction of Jose Tamayo in 1972 (Parker 466). The play is described as "an accurate documentary" of Bohemian Madrid following the end of the First World War in which "Valle-Inclan strove to include the smallest details of happenings, meetings, newspaper headlines, popular topics, political debates, common phrases, cliches, current slang, and, above all, of the physical aspects of the city" (Zahareas x). In fact, the play was Valle-Inclan's first play that was depicted in a contemporary setting (Parker 466). Most of the action of Luces de Bohemia takes place in dingy settings, marked by poverty (Zatlin 11). By contrast, the Cafe Colon is superficially beautiful. Three characters are dressed in impeccable white clothing and the scene is bathed in pink and yellow lighting. Yet the unforgettable result is grotesque. The woman seated downstage right makes jerky movements, like a marionette. The man seated upstage left is a lifeless doll who only becomes animated to provide missing lines of verse for the poet Ruben Dario, who can no longer recall his own work. And the famous poet dominates the modernist cafe from his perch on a moving swing. Valle-Inclan loosely based his tragicomedy of Max Estrella on the life and death of Alejandro Sawa. He retains the real name of the great modernist poet Ruben Dario but treats the figure anachronistically; Dario died several years before the play's action in the 1920s (Zatlin 12). Max's death (as based on that of the real Sawa) in the original play is the culminating point of the grotesque. Max's corpse is represented by a doll; the coffin is propped on an angle so that the body is almost vertical, facing the audience. A tall, deranged Russian poet arrives at the wake and loudly proclaims that Max is not really dead; to disprove his point, the impatient hearse driver puts lighted matches between the corpse's fingers. As the anguished widow and daughter weep for the deceased and wonder how they can survive economically without him, his modernist friends and the deceitful Don Latino, who has stolen the dying man's wallet containing a winning lottery ticket, leave the wake laughing. In a final scene, while Don Latino celebrates his new wealth, the patrons of the seedy bar learn that the two desperate women have committed suicide (Zatlin 13).

Just three years before his death, Kunitz, Haycraft and Hadden (1936) reported that, "Valle Inclan has been writing since the beginning of this century and he has been acknowledged as one of the masters of Spanish prose. In fact [Valle Inclan] is "the foremost stylist, the only one who knows how to manipulate contemporary Castilian with all beauty and propriety. He possesses the poetic quality, the fertile imagination, of his native province, Galicia. He is fond of the bizarre, the supernatural and the archaic" (661). Likewise, Brockett (1968) places Valle-Inclan with Spain's most popular playwrights during the period between 1915 and 1945, and attributes the delay in producing Bohemian Lights to his works' "perhaps to their similarity to Absurdist drama" which accounts for their "only recently coming to the fore" (609). According to this theatrical historian, besides Bohemian Lights, "Valle-Incan, noted primarily as a novelist, wrote several verse plays, satirical dramas, and farces of which the best is probably the 'Farce of the True Spanish Queen' (1920), a biting satire on the reign of Isabelle II" (Brockett 609).

In his works that followed the "Farce of the True Spanish Queen" in the early 1920s, Valle-Incan would create a new dramaturgical aesthetic he termed "esperento." In this regard, in her text, Modern Spanish Dramatists: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Parker (2002) reports that, "Among a number of plays published in magazines and collected in books in the early 1920s were Divinas palabras (1920), Luces de bohemia (1920), Los cuernos de don Friolera (1921), and Cara de Plata (1922). With Luces de bohemia, Valle-Inclan invented a new dramaturgical aesthetic that he called esperpento" (462). The esperento aesthetic is characterized by a "distortion of some aspects of reality, throwing events and characters into grotesque proportions, along with a mingling of elements of farce, horror, satire, mystery, violence, and parody" (Parker 462). In addition, Valle-Inclan also used this term with respect to the three plays collected under the title Martes de carnaval (1930): Las galas del difunto, Los cuernos de don Friolera, and La hija del capitan (Parker 462). In April 1933 Valle-Inclan traveled to Rome to assume the position of director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts; at the time, though, he was already seriously ill and resigned from this post in 1935 and died in a hospital in Santiago de Compostela just a year later on January 5, 1936 (Parker 462).

Although written before he coined the term esperpento, Valle-Inclan's rural drama Divinas palabras. Tragicomedia de aldea [Divine Words] contains elements of esperpentismo. The concept is explained in the dialogue of the play that is usually signaled as his masterpiece, Luces de bohemia [Bohemian Lights]. In Scene 12 of that play, the poet Max Estrella says: "Esperpentismo was invented by Goya….Classical heroes reflected in concave mirrors, that's what the Esperpento is. The tragic sense of Spanish life can be known only through a systematically deformed aesthetic…in a concave mirror, even the most beautiful images are absurd…Deformation ceases to be so when it is subjected to a perfect mathematical law. My current aesthetic is to transform classical norms through the mathematics of a concave mirror." "As manifested in the late plays, esperpentismo might be seen as a realism in which grotesque aspects of life are magnified, in which the horrible and the humorous are superimposed" (Ugarte 466).

According to one authority, "In Luces de Bohemia Madrid is a city of fringes. Not only the fringe between reality and fiction, but a place in which the literary and artworld merge with the squalid and hostile parts of the city. It is an inhospitable dwelling place for artists, a place in which the 'freedom of artistic expression' is a grotesque joke" (Ugarte 466). The few moments in which the audience is able to catch a glimpse of the other Madrid, the center of power and bureaucracy, it is always done from the perspective of the urban margins. Most of the characters who populate Valle's fictional Madrid are far removed from the more pristine and showy side of the city (Ugarte 466). According to Ugarte, "The 'Bohemia' of Bohemian Lights represents the adversarial environment for all those who do not fit into the mainstream -- not just artists, but beggars, prostitutes, drunkards, swindlers, and "losers" of all types. In the initial stage direction, Valle states his intention to offer his spectators a city portrait that will make us wince: 'un Madrid absurdo, brillante y hambriento' (a Madrid of absurdity, brilliance, and hunger)" (Ugarte 466).

The artistic objective of producing a play about Bohemian Madrid is apparent not only in the title but in the inclusion of the word, "brilliant," in the initial designation of the city along with "absurd," and "hungry." The manipulation of light and dark images is perhaps the most important dramatic device in the play in addition to the variety of associations and semantic variations of "lights." Maximo's surname is Estrella (star): he is a shining bard, he feels he knows the way to the good life -- however sordid -- he is a leader, a pathfinder, a trend-setter, and his blindness adds paradoxical dimensions to his brilliance. The chiaroscuro devices of the play are all linked to the lightness-darkness of the real city (Ugarte 143).

If Valle-Inclan exploits the multiple potential of the metaphors of vision, darkness, illumination and projection for the theme of Luces de bohemia, he also draws on the effects of cinema for the dramatisation of its location. Stage directions, for example, are written in montage, as in the portrayal of a bar on the Calle Montera:

1. The tavern of Pica Lagartos: Light from oil lamps: a zinc counter:

2. A dark hall full of tables and benches:

3. Card players: Muffled dialogue.

4. Maximo Estrella and Don Latino de Hispalis, shadows in the shadows of a corner [La taberna de Pica Lagartos: Luz de acetileno: Mostrador de cinc: Zaguan oscuro con mesas y banquillos: Jugadores de mus: Borrosas dialogos. Maximo Estrella y Don Latino de Hispalis, sombras en las sombras de un rincon].

In other cases, the stage directions were characterized by the optical potency of the interplay of light and shade on spaces, faces and objects, and the association of sound with visual image:

1. Night…. Moonlight on the eaves of the houses, cutting the street in two.

2. From time to time the asphalt resonates

3. The echo of the patrol dies away.

4. The door of the Bunoleria Modernista opens slightly, and a shaft of light cuts across the pavement" [Noche…. La luna sobre el alero de las casas, partiendo la calle por medio. De tarde en tarde, el asfalto sonoro…. Se extingue el eco de la patrulla. La Bunoleria Modernista entreaba su puerta, y una banda de luz parte la acera] (quoted in Parsons at 88).

Likewise, Zatlin (2003) reports that in his cinematographic stage directions, Valle-Inclan called for "a veritable kaleidoscope of changing locales as Max Estrella, on the last night of his life, descends into the various circles of the Madrid inferno" (12). In support of this assertion, Zatlin notes that the Tome-De Una design effectively served to achieve this desired goal: Sections of the slats opened to become doors or windows. The division of the slats into levels, with moving figures on a platform behind the upstage wall to represent exterior action, allowed the playing space to shift down from street level or upper floors in one scene to basements in others. Minimal props established the varying locations. A desk and piles of packages, coupled with the movement of passers-by above on the street, created a basement bookstore; the projection of huge letters set the stage for a scene in a newspaper office (Zatlin 12).

For Valle-Inclan, the techniques of cinema suggested methods and metaphors for writing the visual force of the city, its constant succession of images in all their manifold simultaneity. The early cinema of the fairgrounds, variety theatres and show-booths, far from the supreme art of illusory veracity that began to typify film in the 1920s, was a medium that exposed the strangeness of the mundane familiarity of the everyday, and it is perhaps this theatrical 'cinema of attractions' that best relates to ValleInclan's cinematic vision in Luces de bohemia. In 1910s and 1920s Madrid, passers-by on the Calle Alvarez Gato, an alleyway near the Puerta del Sol, could stop to look at distorted reflections of themselves in concave mirrors that stood outside a hardware store, as a plaque in the wall of the restaurant that now stands on the site commemorates. For Valle-Inclan, the grotesque images provided a succinct visual metaphor of modern life, and that of Madrid in particular. Shortly before dying, Max likens contemporary Spain to the reflections of the fairground mirrors: 'Spain is a grotesque deformation of European civilization…. In a concave mirror, the most beautiful images are absurd' [Espana es una deformacion grotesca de la civilizacion europea…. Las imagines mas bellas en un espejo concavo son absurdas] (Parsons 88).

His companion dubiously agrees but protests that he enjoys the entertainment of the Calle del Gato. Estrella admits a similar fascination, going on to define what was to become Valle-Inclan's idiosyncratic aesthetic of modern life, the esperpento: 'Deformation is no longer deformation when it adheres to perfect mathematical principles. My present aesthetic is to transform classical norms with the mathematics of the concave mirror' [la deformacion deja de serlo cuanso esta sujeta a una matematica perfecta. Mi estetica actual es transformar con matematica de espejo concavo las normas clasicas] (Parsons 89).

The paradox of the assumed veracity and yet often queer effects of reflection is a visual motif that Valle-Inclan also uses in scene 9, when Estrella meets with the Nicaraguan modernist poet Ruben Dario in the Cafe Colon. The appearance of the cafe has been distorted by placing mirrors directly opposite each other, so that 'The multiplying mirrors hold melodramatic interest. In their depths the cafe recedes in extravagant geometric form' [Los espejos multiplicadores estan llenos de un interes folletinesco. En su fondo, con una geometria absurda, estravaga el Cafe]. The manipulation of spatial form by the infinite reflections of the mirrors, a mathematical trick that of course Estrella ironically cannot see, directly anticipates his later statements about the mirrors of the Calle de Gato (Parsons 89).

Valle-Inclan (1866-1936) used the label "esperpento" for his most innovative works: grotesque tragicomedies, written in expressionistic, Brechtian style. These difficult, biting satires, which subjected Spanish reality to a systematic deformation inspired by concave mirrors, were seldom staged during the playwright's lifetime but have since received international acclaim. In the history of the Spanish stage, the theatre of Valle-Inclan is now considered of equal, or perhaps even greater, importance than that of Federico Garcia Lorca (Zatlin 11).

The esperpento was to form an art of the grotesque, the carnivalesque and the dehumanized that corresponded to what Valle-Inclan regarded as a specifically national condition, epitomized in the urban context of Madrid (Parsons 89). In this regard, Parsons adds that, "If modern, bourgeois Spain saw itself in the image of the consummate metropolis represented by the Gran Via, the reflections in the comic mirrors deform such triumphal aspirations to reveal the city in all its disoriented, awkward and ridiculous reality" (Parsons 89). The dichotomy between what was desired and what was reality became the focus of the play at this point, highlighting these dualities in ways that would become characteristic of the theatre of the grotesque. For instance, Parsons notes that, "The person who looks in a distorting mirror, suddenly sees all the ludicrousness of his or her everyday pretensions and illusions. For Estrella, and for Valle-Inclan, the predicament of Spain, Madrid and the alienated modern individual was that they were caught in a grotesque affectation of modernity" (89).

In this environment, practically anything that one does is wrong, but there are clearly some options that are better than others. In this regard, Parsons notes that, "The only resort, Estrella proposes, is to confront this absurd condition and to respond with self-mockery rather than anguish, to admit to the hilarity that accompanies tragic situations and gives temporary release to their horror or bitterness" (89). There are some comparable characters that were popular during this period in history that reflect this national angst as well. For example, Parsons notes that, "In the mock-tragic figure of Estrella himself, then, Valle-Inclan plays homage to another influence of the cinema screen. Estrella is Madrid's Chaplin, a human puppet pathetically caught within a series of absurd misadventures, a lonely clown who exaggerates his own ridiculousness, and a vagabond artist who finds vision in the incongruous and the deformed" (90). Loosely based on Valle-Inclan's close associate Alejandro Sawa, a blind poet who had lived in Paris in the 1880s and 1890s, and who had become a notorious cosmopolitan figure in the literary Madrid of the turn-of-the-century, Estrella embodies at once a posture of anti-heroic bohemianism and an ultimately Spanish absurdity: 'To the street, to the battle, to fight with phantoms!' [a la calle, a la batalla, a luchar con fantasmas!], Sawa wrote in his novel Iluminaciones en sombra (Illuminations in the shade) (Sawa 80). Finally, Estrella's futile struggles against an inhuman modernity are similarly quixotic, despairing attacks on the shadows and demons that make up his world, and that are ultimately meaningless in the light of day (Parsons 143).

Theatre of the Grotesque

During the First World War, a new school of writing that is usually called "the theatre of the grotesque" first appeared in Italy (Brockett 1968). The name was derived from the "Mask in the Face" (1916), "A Grotesque in Three Acts" by Luigi Chiarelli (1884-1947) (Brockett 608). Based on the contrast between public and private role playing, this comedy tells the story of a man who, after confessing to the murder of his wife because he thought she had been unfaithful, is tried and acquitted, although in actuality the wife had been locked up at home all the while (Brockett 608). Among the numerous other writers who exploited this ironical approach, the best was probably Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo (1887-) with his works, "Marionettes" (1918) and "Sleeping Beauty" (1919) (608).

During this period, other small art theatres also began featuring works that were characteristic of the theatre of the grotesque, including Luigi Pirandello, Mario Praga, Dario Niccodemi (Berghaus 18). In fact, Berghaus (1998) suggests that, "Many critics believe that the success of Luigi Pirandello or the Theatre of the Grotesque would have been unthinkable without the preceding Futurist experiments. A number of connecting lines have been drawn with Dada and Surrealism. Other, more indirect links led to the Theatre of the Absurd, to Happenings, Poor Theatre, Environmental Theatre, Physical Theatre, etc." (9).