A Sunny Morning

-a one-act play-

by Serafín and Joaquín Quintero

Study Questions:
1. What makes a character dynamic?
2. What makes a character static?
3. What is the setting of the play?
4. What is irony?
 Answers:
1. A character is dynamic when he or she
changes in a play or story.
2. A character is static when he or she remains
the same throughout the story.
3. The setting of A Sunny Day is: a sunny
morning in Madrid, Spain on a bench in the
park.
4. Irony is essentially when the opposite of what
might be expected happens or is spoken.
(verbal irony / situational irony / dramatic irony)
 IRONY

• Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in

which there is an incongruity or
discordance between what a speaker or a
writer says and what he or she means, or
is generally understood.

sarcasm, for example…

 A Sunny Morning
by Serafín and Joaquín Quintero
Let’s watch the video
 Introduction
• ‘A Sunny Morning’ is a comedy in one act.
It is written by Serafin and Joaquin Alveraz
Quintero, known as the ‘Golden Boys of
Madrid Theater’. The play revolves around
two characters Don Gonzalo and Dona
Laura, who in their youth were passionate
lovers but torn apart by the cruelty of fate.
 The meeting in the Park:
• The play begins on a sunny autumn morning in a
quiet corner of a park in Madrid, Spain. Dona
Laura, a handsome, white-haired lady of about
seventy, refined in appearance, is feeding
pigeons.  Don Gonzalo, a gentleman of seventy,
gouty and impatient enters. He shares the same
bench on which Dona Laura is sitting. Both of
them annoy each other at first. Laura is angry
because Gonzalo scared her pigeons. Gonzalo
feels irritated as Laura is annoying him.
 Snuff unites Gonzalo and
Laura: 
• Gonzalo takes out his snuff box and offers a pinch of snuff
to her. Both of them say that they will sneeze three times
after taking a pinch of snuff and finds it to be a strange
coincidence. This unites Laura and Gonzalo after the
disagreement. Then they start talking of their hometowns
and other things. Now Laura reveals that she lived in a villa
at Maricela, near Valencia-one of the largest cities in Spain.
Gonzalo is startled to hear the name “ Maricela”. He then
tells that he knows a girl who lived in that villa, who was
perhaps the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. He
also reveals that the girl’s name was Laura Llorentee. Both
of them realize that they were formerly lovers. 
 The love episode of young
Gonzalo and Laura:
• In her youthful days, Dona Laura was known in her locality as ‘The
Silver Maiden’. She was fair as lily, with jet black hair and black
eyes. She was in love with Gonzalo. He used to pass by on
horseback every morning through the rose garden and tossed up a
bunch of flowers to her balcony which she caught. On his way back
in the afternoon she would toss the flowers back to him. But Laura’s
parents wanted to marry her off to a merchant whom she disliked.
One day there was a quarrel between Gonzalo and the merchant,
the suitor. As the merchant was wounded, Gonzalo fled from his
hometown to Seville and then to Madrid. Even though he tried to
communicate with Laura through letters, all attempts failed. He then
joined Army and went to Africa. Both of them realize that they were
in deep love once they were young but never ever reveal it now.
 Laura and Gonzalo devise
stories of their own deaths:
• The old Laura says that she knows the woman named Laura; known
as ‘The Silver Maiden’ and that she was her friend during her young
age. She also lies that, she knows the tragic story of her love affair
with a gallant young man named Gonzalo. The old Gonzalo says
that he is the cousin of the young man. According to him the young
Gonzalo had to leave his place as he was involved in a fight with a
merchant, the suitor of Laura. Then he joined Army, went to Africa
where he met with a glorious death. The old Laura reveals that
without finding her lover her friend went to the sea shore, wrote her
lover’s name on the sand and sat upon a rock. The tides rose to the
rock and swept her out to sea. But in reality after three months
Gonzalo ran off to Paris with a ballet dancer. Laura got married after
two years. Both know that they are still lying.
 Conclusion: 
• At the end of the play they agree to meet
at the park again, still not acknowledging
what they both know to be true. However,
the whole play can be viewed as a satire
of a mockery over those who pretend to be
true Romeo and Juliet. It leaves a
message that nothing is stable and people
are not ready to reveal their bitter truths.