The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca by Margaret Rich Greer (review)

384Comparative Drama ically focused plays (Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, Professional Foul, both 1978). It is thus unfortunate that the intriguing thesis established earlier in the book—namely, that the difficulty one has in pinning Stoppard down may in fact be the best way of considering his art—gets a bit lost. Like Joyce in Travesties, Stoppard pulls rabbits out of hats in order to demonstrate his role of artist as magician. "In common with this character," wrote Mel Gussow (New York Times, 26 December 1989), "Mr. Stoppard remains the entertainer, ridiculing pomposity and treating himself less seriously than others do." In her insightful but all too brief conclusion on the "coded secrets of play" between playwright and audience, Kelly begins to suggest what anyone who has seen a Stoppard play knows: the play's the thing. KINERETH MEYER Bar-Han University Margaret Rich Greer. The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 256. $39.50. Margaret Rich Greer's study, whose double entendre title hints at her polysemous interpretation of the plays at hand, is a valuable contribution to Calderonian scholarship. This is particularly so with respect to our understanding of the polyphony of written texts and productions of several of that playwright's mythological court dramas from El mayor encanto, amor (1635) to La estatua de Prometeo (1670-74), and even the non-mythological (though no less spectacular) Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa (1680). Greer suggests the need for and proves the benefits of a "triple contextualization" of his dramatic works: "restoring to the printed word Calderón's masterly exploitation of the full polyphony of the dramatic idiom" (p. 199); and recovering "the text of royal power and the political text of these events . . . [which] depends on . . . the appreciation of the performance within the physical space of its representation and within the political context of its day . . ." (p. 200). So doing, she amply and convincingly refutes the widely-held notion that these royal entertainments were merely superficial spectacles intended as flattery to glorify the Hapsburg kings Felipe IV and Carlos II, under whose patronage they were produced. With full documentation and cogent analysis, Greer elucidates Calderón's contribution, which was (as stated in her introduction) : (1) the coherent use of the newest dramatic techniques, combining music, dance, perspective scenery, and complex stage machinery to enhance rather than overpower his poetic text, exploiting to the full the inherent polyphony of the theatrical idiom to produce masterpieces of dramatic illusion; (2) the achievement of a complex discourse of power that combined celebration of the monarch with a tactful critique of his policy, (p. 4) Greer's painstaking research and her densely-packed, elegantly-expressed analyses of the texts themselves and of contemporary commentaries regarding their staging are enhanced by twenty-two illustrations (three of them in color), copious notes, a bibliography, and an index. Reviews385 This carefully-edited work is flawed by but two typographical errors: "a interrelationship" (p. 201) and "occured" (p. 225, n. 8). Because this research represents a major advancement toward a more complete understanding of Calderón's court spectacles and of the interplay of political power in their composition, staging, and interpretation, it should be read by all those interested in those plays and in Spanish theatrical history, particularly that of the Golden Age. For those readers who do not know Spanish, complete comprehension of the book may be difficult, since there are numerous quotations which are not translated or, in some instances, even summarized. Most readers interested in Calderón may know Spanish; but notes with English translations of these and of the other, much less extensive Latin, French, and Italian quotations would broaden the potential readership and understanding of this very worthwhile research. GARY E. BIGELOW Western Michigan University Janet Clare. "Art made tongue-tied by authority": Elizabethan and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990.Pp. xv + 224. $49.95. Richard Dutton. Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of English Renaissance Drama. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.Pp. xiii + 305. $32.95. The nearly simultaneous appearance of two volumes dealing...