Teatro Eslava, a theatre in Madrid, is associated in the book chiefly with the premiere of Federico García Lorca’s first play, The Butterfly’s Evil Spell. The performance opened on 22 March 1920 and closed after only four performances; its reception made the venue the setting for an early, conspicuous setback in Lorca’s theatrical career.

The 1920 Premiere

The play’s producer, Gregorio Martínez Sierra, had initially intended it to be performed by puppets, but the final production used actors. Encarnación López Júlvez, known as La Argentina and then a leading ballet dancer, played the Butterfly. The staging included colourful sets and costumes, with music by Grieg at particular points. The play’s world included cockroaches, a butterfly and a scorpion, an unusual subject for the theatre’s audience.

Reception and Significance

A section of the audience was hostile to theatrical experimentation and seemed determined from the outset to disrupt the evening. The reviews published in the following morning’s newspapers were also discouraging. The play closed after four performances, with audience hostility and poor reviews contributing to the failure of its run. Teatro Eslava thus figures not simply as a premiere venue but as the site where Lorca’s first play met resistance from both spectators and critics.

Place in Lorca’s Early Career

The failure stands in contrast to the subsequent history of Lorca’s theatre, which developed across plays and productions in Spain and abroad. Yet the immediate response at Teatro Eslava established a sharp early divide between his willingness to experiment and the expectations of at least part of the theatrical public. The venue’s place in the account is brief but decisive: it anchors the first production of his dramatic work and its initial, unsuccessful reception.