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Pedro Muñoz Seca
Pedro Muñoz Seca
Born	Pedro Muñoz Seca; 20 February 1879; Puerto de Santa María, Andalusia, Spain
Died	28 November 1936 (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 (20 February 1879 – 28 November 1936^[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 20 February 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 at 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] A humorist to the end, he said to his court-martial, "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]} On 28 November 1936 he was executed by a Spanish Republican Army firing squad in the Paracuellos massacre.^[1]^[2]^[7] His final words, addressed to the firing squad, were "I am starting to believe you are not intending to count me among your friends!"^[18]

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.^[19] The foundation maintains a small museum devoted to the author in his former family home in El Puerto de Santa Maria.^[20]^[21]^[22]

Muñoz Seca is the grandfather of Spanish writer and journalist Alfonso Ussía.^[23]

Dramatic works

República estudiantil
El espanto de Toledo
La novela de Rosario
Las inyecciones
¡Usted es Ortiz!
Calamar
El alfiler
¡Pégame, Luciano!
Satanelo
¡Un! ¡Dos! ¡Tres!... ¡La niña para usted!
¡Todo para ti!
El drama de Adán
Una que no sirve
Equilibrios
¡Te quiero, Pepe!
Bronca en el ocho
El refugio
Los quince millones
La Eme
El gran ciudadano
El rey negro
¡¡Cataplum!!
¡Sola!
Las cuatro paredes
El verdugo de Sevilla
La venganza de Don Mendo
Los extremeños se tocan
La Oca
Anacleto se divorcia
El último pecado
La razón de la locura
¡Por peteneras!
La canción húngara
Coba Fina
Las cosas de la vida
El medio ambiente
La Nicotina
Trampa y cartón
El milagro del santo
López de Coria
El incendio de Roma
Cachivache
Naide es ná
La perla ambarina
Lolita Tenorio
El marido de la Engracia
Albi-Melén
El voto de Santiago
El teniente alcalde de Zalamea
De rodillas a tus pies
La fórmula 3k3
Los rifeños
Un drama de Calderón
Trianerías
Las verónicas
La Tiziana
El mal rato
Los amigos del alma
Pepe Conde o el mentir de las estrellas
Martinglas
El clima de Pamplona
San Pérez
El parque de Sevilla
La hora del reparto
Tirios y troyanos
El número 15
De lo vivo a lo pintado
¡Plancha!
El Goya
La pluma verde
El rey nuevo
La mujer de nieve
Los chatos
Bartolo tiene una flauta
La tela
Los campanilleros
El sonámbulo
La cabalgata de los Reyes
María Fernández
Seguidilla gitana
El voto
La caraba
La mala uva
La Lola
El rajáh de Cochin
Ali-Gui
¡Un millón!
El sofá, la radio, el peque y la hija de Palomeque
¿Qué tienes en la mirada?
Los ilustres gañanes
El cuatrigémino
La perulera
Una mujer decidida
El alma de corcho
Mi padre
El corzo
¡No hay no!
Jabalí
Trastos viejos
La voz de su amo
El Ex...
Mi chica
El escándalo
¡Soy un sinvergüenza!
Papeles
Marcelino fue por vino
La plasmatoria
Zape
Las guerreras
El contrabando
De balcón en balcón
Las tres cosas de Jérez
El lagar
El jilguerillo de los parrales
La neurastenia de Satanás
La cucaña de Solarillo
Fúcar XXI
Pastor y Borrego
La niña de las planchas
La frescura de Lafuente
La casa de los crímenes
La Remolino
El castillo de los ultrajes
La escala de Milán
La conferencia de Algeciras
El último Bravo
Los cuatro Robinsones
La mujer
El rayo
Poca cosa es un hombre
La cura
El clamor
La Academia
La tonta del rizo
Las cuatro paredes (posthumous, premiered in 1940)

Footnotes

^ "¡Podéis quitarme la hacienda, mis tierras, mi riqueza, incluso podéis quitarme, como vais a hacer, la vida, pero hay una cosa que no me podéis quitar, y es el miedo que tengo!"^[12] Other versions of the quote have also been reported.^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16] This phrase is often called his last words, but it was reported several weeks before his death.^[17]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s "Biography". Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca. Archived from the original on February 16, 2012. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Alejo Fernández & Caballero Oliver 2003, p. 292.
^ ^a ^b Chandler & Schwartz 1991, p. 84.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Gonzalez-López 1980, p. 554.
^ Azcune 2007, p. 84.
^ Azcune 2007, p. 84 ("hora corriente de comenzar los espectáculos").
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Pascual Martínez 1994, pp. 696–97.
^ Mainer 2010, p. 328.
^ Mir Serra & Santamaría 2011, p. 170.
^ Gómez García 1998, p. 580.
^ "Pedro Muñoz Seca". Spain is Culture. Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
^ Corniero Lera, Juan Carlos (June 22, 2011). "La España profunda que fusiló a Lorca". El Diario Montanes.
^ Ruiz Quintano, Ignacio (November 4, 2008). "¿Por qué mataron a Muñoz Seca?". ABC.
^ Demichieli, Tulio (February 10, 2010). "Los otros lorcas". ABC.
^ Robles, Francisco (November 14, 2009). "Las extremeñas se tocan". ABC.
^ Leer, vol. 22 p. 46. (ISSN 1130-7676.)
^ "Joke with courtmartial saves life of Spaniard". The St. Louis Star and Times. United Press. November 11, 1936. p. 5.
^ Berra, Paul (2016). Grave Tidings: An Anthology of Famous Last Words. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 9781785901447. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
^ "The Foundation". Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
^ "El Museo". Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
^ Spain. Michelin. 2010. p. 125. ISBN 978-1-906261-92-4.
^ "Fundación Pedro Muñoz Seca". Asociación de Casas-Museo y Fundaciones de Escritores. Archived from the original on May 8, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
^ Camarero, Jose M. (August 11, 2010). "Quiero volver a empezar sin mirar atrás". ABC.

Works cited

Alejo Fernández, Francisco; Caballero Oliver, Juan Diego (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 (in Spanish). CSIC. ISBN 978-84-00-08548-3.
Chandler, Richard Eugène; Schwartz, Kessel (1991). A new history of Spanish literature. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-1735-4.
Gómez García, Manuel (1998). Diccionario del teatro (in Spanish). Ediciones Akal. ISBN 978-84-460-0827-9.
Gonzalez-López, Emilio (1980). "Muñoz Seca, Pedro". In Bédé, Jean Albert; Edgerton, William Benbow (eds.). Columbia dictionary of modern European literature. Entry revised by Harold L. Boudreau. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-03717-4.
Mainer, José-Carlos (2010). Historia de la literatura española (in Spanish). Editorial Critica. ISBN 978-84-9892-068-0.
Mir Serra, Miquel; Santamaría, Mariano (2011). La otra memoria histórica (in Spanish). Ediciones Nowtilus. ISBN 978-84-9967-253-3.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
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.