[Footnote D: The authors define a sainete as a form restricted to one act, and depicting manners of the lower classes only. Hence El patio (in two acts), and the pasos mentioned further on, are not sainetes, for the characters are not taken from the laboring classes. The term cuadro de costumbres would perhaps cover them all.]
It was the Quinteros who started the now declining fashion of "andalucismo" on the stage, but they were also the first to work away from it. The pasos de comedia are short pieces, but they are differentiated from the sainete type by the station of the dramatis personae, who are not of the working class. They speak Castilian, not Andalusian, the scene is laid farther north, and the interest is sought in fine psychology, instead of popular manners. Mañana de sol (1905) contains a delicate mingling of philosophy and humor with the faintest suggestion of pathos, and the same qualities appear in A la luz de la luna (1908), as fanciful and dainty as one of De Musset's Proverbes. El agua milagrosa (1908) is a delightful revelation of human nature, and El último capítulo (1910) equals it in shrewd psychological observation. Such dramatic pictures as these are a permanent and worthy addition to Spanish literature.
So much cannot always be said for the more ambitious flights of the Quinteros. Many times they have tried comedy on a large scale, and tragic figures are not lacking in their long list of created characters, but their success has not been uniform in the broader field. In it are to be found marks of haste in construction, the inevitable harvest of intellects not allowed to lie fallow, and even of concession to popular applause. When they are content with observation or satire they are supreme, as in the interesting zarzuela, El estreno (1900), a vivid glimpse behind the scenes at a "first night"; and in El amor en el teatro (1902) and El amor en solfa (1905), which exhibit the love-scene as it is rendered in various types of play and opera. But when the authors grow serious they approach the danger line, for it is then that a tendency to sentimentality shows unpleasantly at times, which in the purely objective studies serves only to cast a glow of poetry. The public, too, has been overcritical with its favorite funmakers whenever they have tried to convince it that their talent is not confined to provoking laughter; their future has been to a certain extent circumscribed by past successes, and they are not granted a fair hearing. So one must set down as unsuccessful attempts at high comedy or drama La dicha ajena (1902), La musa loca (1905), La casa de García (1904), and La zagala (1904), the last two with almost tragic endings; perhaps even Malvaloca (1912), in spite of its lofty aim and generous teaching. Los Galeotes (1900) is too well rounded and solid a play to be included in the same category. In El amor que pasa (1904) we are shown the longing for a finer life which may beset sensitive womankind in a provincial town. La escondida senda (1908) sings the praises of quiet country life; Doña Clarines (1909) is a character study of much power and truth. El genio alegre (1906), flooded in southern sunshine and perfume, is truly a hymn to the joy of living, and it is the favorite in Spain of all the long plays. A remarkable piece of dramatic technic is La flor de la vida (1910), a three-act play in which only two characters take part. The conflict between the lure of the stage and the attraction of the home in a woman's heart was never stated more clearly or more logically left unsolved than in Pepita Reyes (1903), a very perfect piece of work. Still, the most finished of all the longer efforts is Las flores, comedia en tres actos (1901). The plot is so simple that it will scarcely bear analysis, but the setting is so redolent of flowers and shot through with light, the dialog so restrained and suggestive, the characters so well studied, that one feels in this play the inevitableness of a masterpiece. An artist compared it to a painting of Velázquez, in that the authors sketched with the fewest possible strokes an epitome of Andalusian life. Here there is much sentiment, but no sentimentality. Las flores was coldly received by both audience and critics at its first performance, but since then the latter, at least, have made ample amends.[E]
[Footnote E: Las flores has been highly praised by R. Altamira, J.O. Picón, and other esteemed Spanish writers. Manuel Bueno, by no means partial to the Quinteros, speaks of it as "una de las obras más bellas, intensas y veraces del teatro español contemporáneo".]
The lyric quality predominates in other plays beside Las flores; notably in La rima eterna (1910), which is an expansion and interpretation of a famous Rima of Bécquer, and a worthy tribute to his memory. The Quinteros have not acquired fame as versifiers, perhaps because their extraordinary power of visualizing characters made them dramatists instead, but their interest in poets is as obvious as the poetic quality of their thought. Bécquer is the favorite, and Campoamor and Luis de León have furnished texts for certain plays, while one, Malvaloca, is inspired by an Andalusian copla.
A word as to the language employed by the Quinteros. Southerners themselves, they revel in the Andalusian speech forms, and few of their plays do not contain one or two characters who use them. To those who love the soft accent of Seville and Cadiz, this will prove no draw-back, but an added charm. Yet when one reflects that writings in dialect, even if they are the work of a Goldoni, cannot fail to drop soon out of the current of active literary influence, it is much to be regretted that such remarkable compositions as Las flores, El patio and the racy sainetes are doomed to pass quickly from the stage on that account alone.
The dialog of the Quinteros is lively and natural, at times sparkling with wit—they are inveterate punsters—, and again charged with rich, quiet humor. Long speeches are rare. Their Castilian is highly idiomatic, but not free from Gallicisms and slang. For this reason it has not the value as a pure speech-type that one finds in their Andalusian writings.
According to the latest information, 19 of their plays have been translated into Italian, six into German, two into French, one into Dutch and one into Portuguese. It may be hoped that English will not long remain conspicuously absent from the list.
III
The drama may be a vehicle for any mental concept: satire, ethics, cynicism, philosophy, realism, poetry, social problems, melodrama. Sane optimism and realism suffused with poetry are the inspiring forces of the brothers Quintero. They have no thesis to prove, except that life is sweet and worth living; no didactic aim, except to show that human nature is still sound in the main. It is a distinct relief to read plays so natural and serene, after one has surfeited upon the products of many contemporary continental playwrights, the monotony of whose subject-matter is so obvious that not even supreme technical skill can conceal the sterility of the authors. The eternal triangle, the threadbare motivation into which true affection never enters for a moment, have been ridden to death, and even a French critic is led to comment with resignation upon "this completely unmoral world which is almost the only one we are permitted to see upon the stage". [F] When literature becomes so far separated from life, it needs to be led back to reality, and the excuse, often made, that the average person's life is not an interesting theme for dramatic presentment, argues nothing but impotence on the part of the writers. There has never been an age nor a place where average life did not contain potential material for a creative writer. The Quinteros have undertaken precisely to present the average existence of the bourgeois and lower classes in an interesting way, instead of racking the audience with problems that to at least nine people out of ten are no problems at all. Like Dickens, they touch the comedies and tragedies of daily life with a poetic light, and the revelation of Spanish character reminds us once more of the saying that Spaniards, more than any other European people, resemble Americans. It was William Dean Howells who said, in writing of one of the later novels of Palacio Valdés, that he found in it "a humanity so like the Anglo-Saxon." He would surely extend the statement to the Quintero comedies.