Actor y técnica de representación del teatro clásico español (review)

Reviews281 culto lanaguage into an effective form of dramatic discourse. The final chapter discusses the culmination of Gongorine style in the self-conscious, metatheatrical comedias of Calderón. Chapter 7 would have benefited from a more extensive, in-depth treatment of the impact of culteranismo on the theater of Tirso and Calderón. In addition , some readers will find fault with Quintero's use of "Baroque" throughout the book without defining or limiting the term, as if there were a universally accepted consensus on its meaning. But these are minor flaws in a carefully researched, meticulously documented, and highly original work of scholarship . María Cristina Quintero's Poetry as Play is a groundbreaking book that sheds new light on the Lope/Góngora debate and opens up promising areas for research and discovery in Golden Age literature. Marsha S. Collins The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Diez Borque, José María, editor. Actor y técnica de representación del teatro clásico español. London: Támesis, 1989. Paper. 193 pp. In his introduction to this collection, José María Diez Borque notes that the essays represent the proceedings of a seminar entitled Actory técnica de representaci ón del teatro clásico español (Del Siglo de Oro a hoy), which was held in Madrid in May 1988. The seminar joined the areas of university-level research and theatrical practice, with special emphasis on the role of actors in the seventeenth century: the actors' daily life, rehearsals, the "ritulization" of their work, "ideal" ways of confronting texts so as to define acting approaches , etc. Other essays treat the concept of scenic space in seventeenthcentury productions, as well as contemporary modes of representation of classical theater. The book is divided into five sections: three are based on conference sessions , the fourth is a round-table discussion, and the fifth, an appendix. The first session, "El actor en el siglo XVII, oficio y técnicas de actuación, includes Josef Oehrlein's study of the actor's social reputation and image in the profession, Evangelina Rodriguez's theories on baroque actors' modes of representation , and Victor Dixon's imaginative essay examining Manuel Vallejo, a Golden Age comediante, and his approach to a dramatic text. The second session, "El actor del siglo XVII y los medios escénicos," contains a study by José María Ruano on the commercial theaters, Agustín de la Granja's analysis 282BCom, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Winter 1992) of spectacle, and Antonio Tordera's look at stagecraft in the Theater of the Golden Age. The third session, "Actores y técnicas de representación del teatro clásico hoy," moves into the twentieth century with essays by Francisco Ruiz Ramón on the construction of character in the actualization of the dramatic text and by Luciano Garcia Lorenzo on the mutual relationship between actor and character. The round-table discussion, "Representación del teatro clásico hoy," includes commentary by three theater practitioners; Ricardo Domenech, Adolfo Marsillach, and José Luis Pellicena. The appendix contains an essay by Rafael Maestre on the Calderonian actor on the palace stage. One of the greatest strengths of this collection is its union of scholarly research —especially the historical analyses of the Siglo de Oro stage—and contemporary theatrical practice with regard to staging the classics. A great deal of what is discussed in these essays is not new, and a greater percentage of it is less fact than conjecture, because there is much that we do not know about theatrical performance during the Golden Age. Nonetheless, the majority of the essays in Actor y técnica de representación tell us a great deal about what we do know, and they do so in an engaging and entertaining manner. Victor Dixon, for example, insists in his essay that he is not really an academic, but a Golden Age autor de comedias planning to stage El castigo sin venganza. His first-person narration is a gold mine of information about seventeenth-century staging practices, presented in a refreshingly original style. Joseph Oehrlein paints detailed portraits of the Golden Age actor and daily life in a typical acting...