Gregorio Martínez Sierra


Gregorio Martínez Sierra was a Spanish writer, poet, dramatist, and theatre director, a key figure in the revival of the Spanish theatrical avant-garde in the early twentieth century.

Biography

Firstborn son of Eduardo Martínez Cuesta and Emilia Sierra Muñoz, he had 5 sisters and 2 brothers. In 1900, he married the writer María de la O Lejárraga García. The deft handling of female characters in Martínez Sierra's works has been attributed to the collaboration of his wife. Since the publication of her memoir Gregorio y yo, her authorship of many of his plays has been increasingly recognised by scholars.

Work as a poet and playwright

Martínez Sierra's literary career began at the age of 17 with the publication of El poema del trabajo, a volume of poetry in the modernist style. His subsequent books of poetry included Diálogos fantásticos, Flores de escarcha and La casa de primavera.
As a playwright, Martínez Sierra was one of the few progressive dramatists whose productions achieved any measure of commercial success at the time of their composition. His major works include La sombra del padre, Primavera en otoño, Sólo para mujeres, Mamá and El reino de Dios. Canción de cuna, which has been called his "masterpiece", was popular across the Spanish-speaking world, and an English-language adaptation transferred to Broadway in 1927. Several of Martínez Sierra's plays were adapted into films, including Canción de cuna.

Work as a publisher and director

Martínez Sierra's influence was largely as a publisher and director. Through his publishing house, Renacimiento, he translated the work of William Shakespeare, Maurice Maeterlinck and Santiago Rusiñol, and introduced the work of European playwrights including George Bernard Shaw and Luigi Pirandello to Spain. The authorship of the translations published under Gregorio's name belongs undoubtedly to his wife, María Lejárraga, who was fluent in several languages and she had published translations under her own name before, after and during her attachment to him.
In 1917 he was appointed Director of Madrid's Teatro Eslava and remained there until 1925, transforming the venue into Spain's first Art Theatre. Amongst a series of Spanish and foreign playwrights whose work he produced "in a new, forward-looking style", it was at Martínez Sierra's invitation that Federico García Lorca created and staged, at the Eslava, his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa, in 1920.

Filmography

Screenwriter

Director