From 1916 the scene of her major triumphs was Madrid's Teatro Eslava where plays that she premiered included "No te ofendas, Beatriz" (1920) and "Chica del gato" (1921), both by Carlos Arniches.

Eight years her senior, Martínez Sierra drew respect as a progressive playwright at a time when most of the dramatists writing for the Madrid theatre were unadventurous and conservative.

Martínez Sierra was married to the feminist writer and activist, María Lejárraga, who was understood to help her husband with his plays: there are suggestions from some quarters that she wrote them.

One of her lover's contributions to the Spanish stage was as a translator: Bárcena featured in premiers of important foreign plays such as Ibsen's Doll's House (1917) and Shaw's Pygmalion (1920).

One was of "El maleficio de la mariposa" ("The Curse of the Butterfly"), generally identified as the first play by Federico García Lorca, in a production that used memorable costumes designed by Rafael Barradas.

As early as 1916 Bárcena and Martínez Sierra were involving themselves in the newly popular genre of pantomime, blending the traditions of musical theatre and spoken stage works.

Bárcena had always sworn that she would have nothing to do with cinema, but in California the major studios were desperately confronting the reality that many of the top stars of the silent screen lacked the voice projection and other vocal talents appropriate for the new technologies.

Maria Luisa was married to a Catalan ship's captain whose father was Juan Antonio Molinas Soler, President of the Port of Barcelona, of the New Vulcano shipyards and of the "Association of Industrial Engineers" ("Asociación de Ingenieros Industriales").

The company had its debut at the Madrid Comedy Theatre ("Teatro de la Comedia") with "Pygmalion", followed in 1949 by another foreign play, "Fifty Years of Happiness".

[1][2] After she died in 1978, one of the most memorable epitaphs was penned by Lorca, by now himself something of a "grand old man" of the theatre, who dedicated a poem to her memory in which he recalled her voice as having "sounded like music and crystal" ("sonaba a música y cristal").