Texto y espectáculo: Selected Proceedings of the "Fourteenth International Golden Age Spanish Theatre Symposium" (March 9-12, 1994) at The University of Texas. El Paso (review)

Reviews109 Suárez García, José Luis, ed. Texto y espectáculo: Selected Proceedings of the "Fourteenth International Golden Age Spanish Theatre Symposium " (March 9-12, 1994) at The University of Texas. El Paso. York, SC: Spanish Literature Publications, 1995. Paper. 130 pp. $12. This collection of conference papers is appropriately dedicated to the eminent Mexican hispanist José Amezcua, whose untimely death in 1994 deeply affected his fellow comediantes. A frequent, generous, and welcome presence both at the yearly symposium sponsored by UTEP and at the theater festival held at the Chamizal National Memorial, one of his last contributions to Golden-Age theater appears in the volume. As the editor points out in his brief introduction, the twelve articles in the collection exemplify a variety of approaches to different themes and authors from the Golden Age, as well as some comparative studies which examine the influence of Spain's classical theater on subsequent writers and literary periods. Within the collection itself, the range ofstudies encompasses both brief, note-like entries and substantial contributions accompanied by complete bibliography and annotation. In the first of the studies dealing with the Comedian influence on later writers, Alberto Acereda explores the themes of magic and theology in two Calderonian autos and in Valle-Inclán's Divinaspalabras (a self-designated tragicomedia). Although the author illustrates some interesting aspects of the works, one nonetheless questions whether the genres being compared (auto and tragicomedia) can bear the weight ofthe ideological scrutiny applied to them. Moreover, the suggestion that Calderón's allegorical productions may serve as ideological synecdoches for the whole of his theater obscures the critical consideration of honor characteristic of other genres. In a short note Theodore S. Beardsley, Jr., brings to our attention a shadow play based on La Celestina, which was performed by puppeteers in Barcelona and published in 1865, and a playlet with the same title by Frederich Fuentes , which appeared in 1899. He then asks whether these two dramatic productions could have influenced Felipe Pedrell's opera Celestina. In the last comparative study, Gordon Sumner briefly examines the influence of Golden Age theater on Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir, especially that oíLa vida es sueño. Sumner teases us with a very suggestive hypothesis concerning the relationship of seventeenth-century hagiographie plays and Unamuno 's preoccupation with Spain's intra-history. Jesús García Várela, in fact, examines Tirso's Santa Juana trilogy, ascribing the frequency of the hagiographie genre's appearance on Spanish stages to Counter-Reformation directives. After an informative analysis of 770BCom, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 1997) the plays, he concludes that Tirso's trilogy could well serve as a precise compendium of all the elements traditionally associated with Spain's comedias de santos. Of special interest is his emphasis on stage effects which abound in all such plays. Contrasting this study with José Luis Suárez García's informative and detailed examination of the pivotal importance of the Jesuit P. Pedro de Rivadeneira (1527- 161 1) in debates on theatrical Hcitness , one discovers yet again confirmation of the conflictive character of Spanish theatrical history. This severe critic of Spanish performance practices either distorted or totally ignored Aquinas's opinions on theater in his pell-mell rush to apply texts from the church fathers to modern plays. While, on the one hand, there were religious leaders who approved of having these living examples of holiness represented in the corrales, on the other, there were those like Rivadeneira who sought to ban outright all theatrical productions. Rivadeneira, along with P. Mariana who came after him, became authorities, especially for other members of the Society, for what posterity would come to label "theJesuit theme." There are several studies dealing with individual plays. Santiago Garcia Castañón examines Bances Candamo's Por su reyy por su dama, based on historic events in 1597 in northern France, in which Hernán Tello Portocarrero played a prominent role. After an illuminating analysis of this very popular (in its day) and interesting play, one may share the author's dismay that it has fallen into oblivion. Donald R. Larson applies convincingly proxemics ("the ways in which...