2014 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal

The 2014 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, held at the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, Texas, featured five different productions and ran from February 26 through March 2. Unlike past years, this festival played host to only two theater groups, each of which performed multiple times. The first, Mayte Bona and Francisco Negro’s Morfeo Teatro from Burgos, Spain, performed La escuela de los vicios and La lozana andaluza during the first two nights. The second, Francisco García Vicente Cambalache Teatro and Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático (ESAD) from Murcia, Spain, performed De fuera vendrá quien de casa nos echará, El secreto a voces, and Puro Lope during the last three nights of the festival. What the festival lacked in terms of variety of contributors, it made up for with diverse theatrical productions. While some were more traditional comedia fare, such as De fuera vendrá quien de casa nos echará and El secreto a voces, others were original adaptations of disparate works, including La escuela de los vicios and Puro Lope. In all, the performances were well attended and well received. Five different critics wrote the reviews that follow, each from his or her unique perspective, in the hope of representing the diversity of audience members, critics, and reactions to the performances that consistently make the Chamizal Siglo de Oro Drama Festival such a unique and enjoyable experience.

La escuela de los vicios

On Wednesday, February 26, Morfeo Teatro from Burgos, Spain, opened Chamizal’s 2014 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival with La escuela de los vicios, a production based principally on the poetry, satire, and political commentary of Francisco de Quevedo. In order to create a unified performance, Morfeo Teatro constructed an overarching plot designed to weave disparate elements together. This plot featured a devil named Cojuelo who engaged two decent but foolish men in a “school of vice” designed to corrupt both them and their morals in exchange for positions of power and importance. Muñoz and Mendoza only agree to take part in the tempter’s “Escuela de vicios” once Cojuelo offers them money. Through a series of four lessons, the diabolical educator bestows various dubious degrees upon his often-reticent students, including “bachiller en mentir, licenciado en engañar, doctor en robar y catedrático en medrar.” Their education culminates in receiving from Cojuelo the titles of “Ministro” and “Magistrado,” a sure indication of their complete corruption and induction into the ways of the world.

La escuela de los vicios featured Mayte Bona as the astute Cojuelo and Francisco Negro and Felipe Santiago as the two willing students, Sr. Mendoza and Sr. Muñoz. Two members of the small cast served double duty, with Negro also acting as the director and Bona as the costume designer. Regue Fernández Mateos designed the minimalist set, and José Antonio Tirado worked as the lighting designer and technical director. As the play began, Cojuelo recited Quevedo’s sonnet, “La fragilidad de la vida,” thus setting the tone for the bleak undercurrent of the comic show. The stage was set with nothing more than two chairs, a bench, and a platform on which rested a large trunk full of costumes and masks. Although sparse, this set design proved versatile as the actors utilized it to easily and quickly transform the stage into a school, a street, or a hotel, depending upon the needs of each scene. The lighting was equally simple, illuminating the speakers when necessary and leaving the major part of the stage in darkness, although sometimes the low lighting kept the audience members from seeing the actors’ faces. At certain moments during the performance, projections, such as the moon and clouds, lit the back curtain and helped set the scene.

Bona’s costumes were beautiful but somewhat incongruous, as the two students wore the traditional Golden Age garb (both dressed in tones of gray and black). Cojuelo, on the other hand, resembled a nineteenth-century gentleman, decked out in a red riding coat with tails, black pants, black knee-high boots, a black cravat, lace sleeves, and donkey ears attached to a...