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Theatre in Spain, 1490-1700

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Melveena McKendrick, in her Theatre of Spain 1490-1700 (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and in what she herself admits a formidable task, traces the evolution and éclosion of the Spanish Golden Age drama phenomenon known as the comedia "in all its aspects". By examining "the commercial theatre, the court drama and Corpus autos, the organization of theatrical life, the theatres themselves and their public, the literary and moral controversies, and the plays as literary texts", McKendrick gives a very complete picture of theatre in Spain during the given dates because, as she states, no other work gave such an account "from this multiple perspective... Finally, McKendrick addresses special types of Spanish Golden Age theatre including corrales, court, and street drama or the auto sacramental.

Her style made for a very comfortable read, and although she does not use the same language as Michel Foucault, her purpose not being philosophical, she does seem to one who has just been reading his The Order of Things (1967) to dance all around similar topics - performance, symbolic, impersonation, transforming (power of love), allegory, dynamism, spectacle, symbol, metaphor, parody, satire, irony, parable, representation, recreation, imitation, themes, motifs, "telling visual, structural and thematic parallels", endings "prefigured iconographically" (both p 87), "the importance of dress in [provoking] assumptions about status and identity" (88), reflection, identifying, implicit/meaning/statement, accepting things as [what they are (re)presented], idealization, symbolism, imagery, interpretation, and paradigm.

McKendrick begins in Chapter One at the beginning of what we know about theatre in Spain, the medieval era. By showing how medieval theatre was intimately linked to the Catholic Church, as early plays or autos were performed for feast days to illustrate and teach religious principles through parable, McKendrick shows how medieval literature was dedicated to the principle of enseñar deleitando.

The "Father of Spanish Drama", Juan del Encina, is introduced and he respectively introduces the theme that is the fuerza motor of all drama, entertainment, and therefore representation, and thus by extension the world, love. Here we see the echo, as one heard comedias with a "listening eye" (16), of the omnipresent medieval duality of love. The theme of the necessity for the use of such opposites was recurrent. McKendrick points out that these wonderful devices create the dramatic tension and the conflict necessary in a drama. The play of opposites suits itself equally to the purpose of education or political statement by representing key conflicts in the world, such as good and evil.

McKendrick explains the economic reasons why theatre in Spain evolved from mere Church yard feast lessons to the complex multi-act art form, stating that "[t]he crucial change came in the 1540s and 1550s" when the demand for drama demanded an increased supply and theatre production became big business. As the title for this chapter indicates, drama became theatre.

Chapter Three presents mind-boggling statistics on the prolific talent of these dramatists, the difference between the attention span of audiences then and now, and the "fine old headache" of comedia, comedy, play, tragedia, tragicomedia terminology. The author treats the puzzle of the existence or not of true tragedy in Spanish drama. Cervantes' unsuccessful venture of a dramatist is mentioned. McKendrick dedicates Chapter Four entirely to the man Cervantes called a "monster of nature", Lope de Vega and his "freakish facility" for creating his hundreds of plays. She divides his works into three categories, those treating peasant honour, the power of love, and a `mixed bouquet'. In her discussion of the honour plays, McKendrick deals in depth with the topic of sexual aggression used to represent political power. Lope's topos remind me of all those present in the evolution of another popularly-driven literary art - the novel with its voyages, shipwrecks, misdirected letters, confused identities, multiple deaths, long-lost relative recognition.

Chapter Five treats Tirso de Molina and the other Lopistas. Fray Gabriel Tellez was a more scandalous disciple of Lope de Vega. He too treated social, political and religious questions but more abrasively and unusually. In the end, the controversy surrounding him resulted in his being banished from his monastery. McKendrick also presents other Lopistas Guillén Castro, Antonio Mira de Amescua, Luis Vélez de Guevara, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Cervantes as well as two shorter dramatic forms associated with them, the entremes and the loa.

McKendrick dedicates Chapter Six to the later "darling of playgoers" (140), Pedro Calderón de la Barca. She divides and discusses his works in four categories: light-hearted comedies, serious dramas, mythological plays which were the birth of opera in Spain, and the religious and allegorical one-act autos sacramentales. Briefly mentioned are also two of Calderón's disciples, Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Agustín Moreto y Cabaña.

Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine discuss respectively the corrales dramas and their audience, theatre at court and theatre in the street, also known as the auto sacramental. Here McKendrick shows how external considerations shaped the evolution of Spanish theatre. She describes the playhouses, the actors and their administration, money, policing, moral controversies, and using diagrams and images shows the scenic details of the mounting of several particular performances both on stages and carts.

In this book, McKendrick connects my three favorite periods of literature, medieval, Golden Age and Romanticism. Theatre in Spain 1490-1700 by Melveena McKendrick proved very useful to me for foundation in an area for which I have never had a formal class but in which I know find myself in a seminar course. Her approach was broad enough to present a realistic picture of how this special form of theatre came into being but was also focused enough to be clear. I plan to use this book as a reference and recommend it without reservation.