callejon del gato

Question

I wondered if anyone knew what this meant.callejon del gato.. it is in Luces de Bohemia by Valle Inclan.

in phrase-
"los heroes clasicos han ido pasearse en el callejon del gato"

Literally i know it is like the alley way of the cat, but presumably it refers to something historical/ cultural... hope some one may know! Thanks

Answer 1

Webcite:

R. Méndez's dramas are popular chronicles that consist of a succession of sketches of everyday life, each of which is significant not only for what it contributes to the whole, but in itself. The stage directions incorporate extensive descriptive and narrative passages usually associated with the novel. The roots of his earthy realism are to be found in the picaresque novel, with its antiheroes that reflected the decay of Spain's Empire, in the sainetes, or brief sketches of everyday life and customs in Madrid's poorer quarters, by Ramón de la Cruz and Ricardo de la Vega, as well as in the esperpentos, that Valle-Inclán likened to reflections of classical heroes in the concave mirrors of the amusement arcade in Madrid's Callejón del Gato. The nineteenth-century género chico arose in opposition to, or as a counter image of, the heroic, bourgeois drama. R. Méndez, like Valle-Inclán, uses the género chico as the basis for dramas in which the popular sketch of customs ceases to be an end in itself and becomes an instrument of exposition and implicit denunciation.