Calle de Tamayo y Baus

Calle de Tamayo y Baus, a short, crooked stretch in the Justicia neighborhood, bears the name of a playwright practically born in the wings. Manuel Tamayo y Baus (Madrid, 1829–1898) came into the world the son of actors and grew up treading the boards: by twelve he had already premiered a work. His major play was Un drama nuevo (1867), set in Shakespeare’s England, with Shakespeare himself as a character, handling theatre within theatre so skillfully that critics later likened it to Pirandello, decades ahead. In 1874 the Royal Spanish Academy named him perpetual secretary, and from 1884 he directed the National Library. The name suits the place, for Madrid’s theatrical life clustered here at the end of the 19th century. At number 4 stands the Teatro María Guerrero, opened in 1885 as the Teatro de la Princesa, today home of the National Drama Center.