The Spanish theatre in the forties was in a far from promising condition. Garcia Lorca and Casona, who had revitalized the drama in the thirties, had disappeared from the scene. Benavente was still active, but his best work had been done before the Civil War, and his recent plays had little new to offer. The principal writers for the theatre were a group of playwrights who were already well established in the thirties, capable craftsmen such as Jardiel Poncela, Neville, Mihura, López Rubio, and Ruiz Iriarte, who wrote largely teatro de evasión—escapist literature. They sought to entertain the audience rather than to treat the anguishing problems of postwar Spain.