Sobre el teatro del absurdo (de Juan del Encina a Juan Mateu)

Abstract

From the analysis of a few comic devices of the absurd in Don Juan Tenorio «El refugiao» —a parodical play by exiled playwright Juan Mateu, first performed in Toulouse in 1958—, this article aims at showing that a tradition is still alive —a tradition that can, non only be traced back to La venganza de don Mendo by Muñoz Seca (who did not, as has been claimed, invent the theatre of the absurd), but which is also part of an old trend stemming from Juan del Encina's famous Disparates, which has been exemplified by the burlesque plays of the seventeenth century, which was obvious in the nineteenth and early twentieth century popular liking for parodical drama, and which is still today one of the sources of what could be called humour the Spanish way.