Jason Yancey and Dr. Dale Pratt, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain experienced a literary explosion of unequalled comparison. Dozens of authors lent their pens to create some of the most brilliant and influential works of all time, such as Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha, or characters such as Tirso de Molina’s widely popular don Juan from El burlador de Sevilla. This era of greatness, known as the Spanish Golden Age, was perhaps most renowned for its quantity and quality of theatre works. Sadly, these magnificent plays are rarely performed on a modern stage. Our objective for this project was not only to revive a Spanish Golden Age play, La dama duende, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in Spanish but also to re-create the 17th century corral, or theatre house, as a framework for viewing the piece. Our hopes were that this unique approach would be both highly entertaining and singularly educational for everyone involved.
All of the student participants in the project were registered for the SPAN 439R/639R class, winter semester 2002. After a short audition process, the nearly 30 students were divided into various research groups: characters in the play, costumes, set design, historical setting, dramaturgy, etc. Working under the mentoring guidance of graduate students and Dr. Pratt, each student in the group investigated a certain aspect of Spanish Golden Age Theatre and wrote a scholarly paper on their findings. Later, these papers were compiled and published, by the students, in a book that was made available to audience members at no additional cost. This is one of the most remarkable fruits of the project. It provided our audience with a more detailed awareness of the period and people that originally produced the play. Even more remarkable, the intense research period and group discussions in class made Spanish Golden Age scholars out of each student who participated.
In addition to writing a paper for the publication, most of the students in the class filled roles as actors in the play. There were actually two plays in the performance. The first was a short, 15- minute play called a loa, involving well over a dozen roles. Also written by Calderón, it was intended as an introduction to our larger play, La dama duende, which involved only nine acting roles but lasted approximately an hour and a half. The rehearsal process for these two plays was intense and began almost immediately after casting. Dr. Pratt, the actors and myself were involved in the initial cutting of the script before starting the four to six rehearsal sessions each week, February through March. some actors had several hundred lines to memorize, entirely in Spanish. In addition, ORCA grant money provided the much needed funding for students and faculty to sew the 30 costumes, build a set on the west patio of the Harold B. Lee Library, run publicity and publish the book.
The findings of the actual performance were astonishing. A somewhat controversial element of the period setting was the division in the audience between men and women. In the 17th century, men were allowed to sit in the front and sides while the women were confined almost exclusively the back balcony of the theater house. To my knowledge, this separation has not been used in performance for several hundred years, yet I hypothesized that the division in this setting was crucial to comprehending the full message of the play. It was often difficult to explain to audience members why they were not allowed to sit with whomever they wanted, yet in an open discussion that followed each performance, many audience members expressed the notion that such a separation dramatically affected the way they viewed the play and chose to interact with the actors. It also affected the way the actors were able to interact with the public. Following one actor’s line making a jab at the women way in the back, one woman stood up and yelled, “We used to like you but now we don’t!” before pelting him with one of the provided “tomatoes” (small beanbags). Physical separation literally placed the modern audience in a position to consider the play’s unfair treatment of women and consider the ways in which such divisions still exist today.
This sort of direct audience-actor interaction stemming from the 17th century became one of the great strengths of the play. The line between the two sides was repeatedly obliterated as actors both evoked and answered responses from the audience. They even jumped off the stage and spoke in English. When an audience member got out of line, armed guards came in to restore the peace. Some unlucky members were even carried off in shackles! We saw an audience come alive in remarkable ways and enjoy so much more than just a theatre performance. They truly became part of the entire theatrical experience of a 1629 performance in Madrid.
Furthermore, the play revealed a local Hispanic community thirsty for activities and arts that address their culture and heritage. As director of the play, I was able to talk with many audience members who expressed their sincere gratitude to members of the class and to BYU for presenting a fulllength, quality play done entirely in Spanish. The play also generated overwhelming enthusiasm from our non-Spanish speaking audience members. While they missed out on some of the inherent humor in the dialogue, they were able to follow along with the visual comedy and the story through the aid of the publication, program and other available study materials. As a result of the enormous success of the show, from students, faculty and community, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese has decided to make the class and the production of a Spanish play an annual event. Next year’s production, Tirso de Molina’s Don Gil de las calzas verdes, slated for April 2003, hopes to build on the success of La dama duende and expand its reach and appeal. In essence, the impact of this project has only begun.