Pedro Muñoz Seca

Pedro Muñoz Seca
Born	Pedro Muñoz Seca (1879-02-21)21 February 1879 Puerto de Santa María, Andalusia, Spain
Died	28 November 1936(1936-11-28) (aged 57) Paracuellos de Jarama, Spain
Occupation	Writer, dramatist
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Spanish
Genre	Astracanada
Spouse	María Asunción Ariza Díez de Bunes

Pedro Muñoz Seca (born February 20, 1879 in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain; died November 28, 1936 in Paracuellos de Jarama, Madrid, Spain^[1] ) was a Spanish comic playwright. He was one of the most successful playwrights of his era.^[2] He wrote approximately 300 dramatic works, both sainetes (short vignettes) and longer plays, often in collaboration with Pedro Pérez Fernández or Enrique García Álvarez.^[3][4] His most ambitious and best known play is La venganza de Don Mendo (Don Mendo's Revenge, 1918); other major works include La barba de Carrillo (Carrillo's Beard, 1918) and Pepe Conde (1920).^[4]

Early life and career

Muñoz Seca was born into a large family in El Puerto de Santa María, Cadiz, Spain, on February 20, 1879.^[1] (Because Muñoz Seca loved palindromic numbers, however, he often claimed that he was born in 1881.^[1][5] He also claimed to have been born at 10:15 pm, "the normal time for shows to start".^[6]) Muñoz Seca attended primary school in the Jesuit school of San Luis Gonzaga in El Puerto de Santa María.^[1] He then moved to Seville to study philosophy and law; he graduated in 1901.^[1][2] While Muñoz Seca was still a student, his first plays premiered in El Puerto de Santa María (República estudiantil, Un Perfecto de pasivas, and El señor de Pilili) and in Seville (Las Guerreras).^[1]

After his graduation, Muñoz Seca moved to Madrid.^[1][2] There, he taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and later would work as a lawyer.^[1][4][7] He often attended literary society meetings, and there met Sebastian Alonso.^[1] The two collaborated on the play El Contrabando, which premiered in 1904.^[1] Muñoz Seca entered public service in 1908, taking a post in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.^[1][4][8] Soon thereafter, he married María Asunción Ariza Díez de Bulnes; they would have nine children.^[1][9]

Career as playwright and death

His work often employed "slang, puns, plays on words, caricature, parody, and dramatic tricks".^[3] He was the inventor of a new genre of comic theatre, the astracanada, the most celebrated example of which is La venganza de Don Mendo, a satire of the romances popular in Spain at the turn of the century.^[1]

Muñoz Seca's popularity grew after the premiere of La venganza de Don Mendo. Many of his later plays were very successful, including La pluma verde (1922), Los chatos (1924), La tela (1925), and Los extremeños se tocan (1927) (all written in collaboration with Pedro Pérez Fernández, but who contributed little to the works).^[1][10] These works shifted away from costumbrismo toward Muñoz Seca's trademark astracanada.^[1]

After the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, Muñoz Seca was at the height of his career, though his dramatic output slowed.^[1][11] Major works during this period include La voz de su amo (1933), Anacleto se divorcia (1932), La EME (1934), and La plasmatoria (1935). Muñoz Seca was a royalist and friend of Alfonso XIII, and his plays La oca (1931) and Jabalí (1932) sharply criticized the Second Republic.^[1][7] In July 1936, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he was arrested in Barcelona; he was later transported to Madrid.^[1][7] On November 28, 1936, he was executed by a Spanish Republican Army firing squad in the Paracuellos massacre.^[1][2][7] A humorist to the end, he said to the firing squad, "You can take my hacienda, my land, my wealth, even--as you are going to do--my life. But there is one thing that you cannot take from me--the fear that I have!"^{[note 1]}

Legacy

The Pedro Muñoz Seca Municipal Theater in El Puerto de Santa María and the Muñoz Seca Theater in Madrid are named in Muñoz Seca's honor.

In 1995, the Pedro Muñoz Seca Foundation (Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca) was established; it is sponsored by descendants of the author and by the government of El Puerto de Santa Maria.^[18] The foundation maintains a small museum devoted to the author in his former family home in El Puerto de Santa Maria.^[19][20][21]

Muñoz Seca is the grandfather of Spanish writer and journalist Alfonso Ussía.^[22]

Dramatic works

Footnotes

References

Works cited

• Alejo Fernández, Francisco; Juan Diego Caballero Oliver (2003). Cultura andaluza: geografía, historia, arte, literatura, música y cultura popular (in Spanish). MAD-Eduforma. ISBN 978-84-665-2913-6. 
• Azcune, Valentín (2007). Biblioteca Teatral. CSIC. ISBN 978-84-00-08548-3. 
• Chandler, Richard Eugène; Kessel Schwartz (1991). A new history of Spanish literature. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-1735-4. 
• Gómez García, Manuel (1998). Diccionario del teatro. Ediciones AKAL. ISBN 978-84-460-0827-9. 
• Gonzalez-López, Emilio (revised by Harold L. Boudreau). "Muñoz Seca, Pedro". In Jean Albert Bédé; William Benbow Edgerton (eds.) (1980). Columbia dictionary of modern European literature. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-03717-4. 
• Mainer, José-Carlos. Historia de la literatura española. Editorial Critica. ISBN 978-84-9892-068-0. 
• Pascual Martínez, Pedro (1994). Escritores y editores en la Restauración canovista, 1875-1923 (in Spanish). Ediciones de la Torre. ISBN 978-84-7960-101-0. 

Further reading

• Cantos Casenave, Marieta; Alberto Romero Ferrer (1998). Pedro Muñoz Seca y el teatro de humor contemporáneo: (1898-1936). Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz. ISBN 84-7786-522-1. 
• Comision Pro-Homenaje a D. Pedro Muñoz Seca (1950). Homenaje a la memoria de Don Pedro Muñoz Seca. Puerto de Santa María: Talleres de Gráficas Andaluzas. OCLC 16641511. 
• Ferrer, Alberto Romero; Marieta Cantos Casenave (2004). ¿De qué se venga Don Mendo?. El Puerto de Santa María: Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca. ISBN 84-923295-3-X. 
• Montero Alonso, José (1939). Pedro Muñoz Seca: vida, ingenio y asesinato de un comediógrafo español. Madrid: Ediciones españolas. OCLC 3506723. 
• Peinado, Carlos Alba (2009). La censura del teatro republicano de Pedro Muñoz Seca. Madrid: Cátedra Valle-Inclán-Lauro Olmo, Ateneo de Madrid. ISBN 84-936415-4-5. 
• Ussía, Alfonso (1994). Pedro Muñoz Seca, el hombre y el teatro. Oviedo: Ayuntamiento de Oviedo. OCLC 431918085. 
• Varela Gilabert, Juan Ignacio (1979). Muñoz Seca a través de una amistad familiar. Puerto de Santa María: Fundación Municipal de Cultura. ISBN 84-500-3235-0. 

External links

• Official Web Page - Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca (Spanish)