The End: Modern Productions of El burlador de Sevilla, with Special Attention to Closings

The final tableaux of a play create the impression with which the audience will come away from the theater. A director approaches a play differently from a scholar in that a director must read backwards, considering first the ending, the culmination of the action, and then building toward the finale. While some modern directors have viewed El burlador de Sevilla from a traditional, Catholic perspective, others have stressed its moral ambiguity. By studying the final tableaux of five modern productions, we can begin to appreciate the wide range of interpretations to which the play lends itself.

The Radiotelevisión version, directed by Gonzalo Pérez Puig, ends with a replay of the opening scene. The circular structure conveys a restoration of order, and at the same time, a warning. The camera moves slowly across the line of mourners, which includes the entire cast, thereby creating an image of cohesiveness. The message is that the entire society is caught in a circular labyrinth from which there is no escape. The production of the Escuela de Bellas Artes of the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua imbues the play with a distinctly Mexican flavor, but presents a less coherent view than Pérez Puig's. In the final tableaux the tone shifts from humorous to serious so many times that the impact of Don Juan's damnation is diluted. In contrast, the final tableaux of the production of the Escuela de Arte Teatral of the Instituto de Bellas Artes de México convey a clear censure of the social anarchy that Don Juan represents and the restoraton of order under the Catholic monarch. Throughout the play, a chorus of masked, puppet-like characters communicates the notion that Spanish society has degenerated into a farce. At the end of the play, the gesticulating, crow-like figures are gone, and the monarch occupies center stage, thereby "anchoring" society. Cuban director René Buch exploits the play's underlying themes of social decay, political corruption, and sexual deviation in the Repertorio Español production, but unlike the Spanish and Mexican versions, this interpretation offers no moral resolution. The final tableau is asymmetrical, creating the impression of an unbalanced, irrational world governed by rigid codes of conduct from which no deviation is tolerated. In such a world, Don Juan, the introspective rebel, is more a hero than a villain. In the English-language production at the Source Theater in Washington, D.C., director Joe Danno modernizes the setting, transforming Don Juan into a spoiled, bored rich kid who takes drugs and seduces women. While in traditional productions Don Juan is carried down to hell about three-fourths through the third act, in Danno's the final tableau portrays the young man lying dead in the arms of Catalinón. Then, slowly, he rises and smiles diabolically, suggesting that although Don Juan, the individual, may have been vanquished, his spirit lives on. The Source's ending implies that as long as we as a society continue to permit and applaud self-indulgent behavior, exploitation, and abuse, Don Juan will triumph.

Each of the five productions offers a distinct closing that reflects not only the director's concept, but also the culture of which he is a product. These examples demonstrate the extent to which the staging of the closing of a play may reinforce or subvert the text. (BM)