Crossing the Gendered "Clothes"-Line: Lanini y Sagredo's El parto de Juan Rana

The entremés and its actors played an important role, both financially and thematically, in the theater of the baroque period. Many critics have overlooked this historical fact. The analysis of the entremés and its distinctive mundo al revés sheds new light on the hitherto-perceived seventeenth-century theater production and baroque society in general. The infamous Juan Rana was the star of this genre, and during his long and successful career he collaborated with the most important entremisil and comedia companies of the time. His arrest in 1636, for el pecado nefando, served as a thematic point of departure for the many entremesistas who wrote specifically for him. Such is the case of Lanini y Sagredo's gender-bending El parto de Juan Rana. Here, the emasculated and hen-pecked protagonist is put on trial and sentenced to appear in public, dressed as a woman. Juan Rana's well-advanced pregnancy, symbolizing the exaggerated extent of his irregular behavior, serves as a histrionic and hysterical parody of the societal constructs and constrains enforced by the powers that be. The climactic and much celebrated birth of Juan Ranilla represents the acceptance of the other, of difference by his peers. Ultimately, El parto de Juan Rana embodies an unabashed and over-the-top critique of patriarchal authority that still rings true today.