El teatro en tiempos de Felipe II. Actas de las XXI Jornadas de Teatro Clásico, Almagro, 7, 8 y 9 de julio de 1998 (review)

REVIEWS El teatro en tiempos de Felipe II. Actas de las XXI Jornadas de Teatro Clásico, Almagro, 7, 8 y 9 dejulio de 1998. Ed. Felipe B. Pedraza Jiménez and Rafael González Cañal. Corral de Comedias 9. Almagro : Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Festival de Almagro, 1999. 296 pp. To commemorate the fourth centennial of the death of Felipe II, the XXI Jomadas de Teatro Clásico devoted three days to conferences on the theater of the period. There were also discussions of the plays—by Calderón and Rojas Zorrilla—performed in Almagro on the first two days, and a staged reading of Cervantes's La Numancia on the final day. The essays contained in this book have been organized into four sections: "Los dramaturgos," "La época y los géneros," "La vida teatral y los impresos," and "Crónicas de los coloquios y otras actividades." Rinaldo Frondi ("Reconsiderando el teatro de Juan de la Cueva") opens the first chapter by stressing the fact that Juan de la Cueva and his generation should be studied within a historical perspective that frees them from the generic and erroneous classification of "Renaissance authors," since their work is produced in clear opposition to Renaissance culture. Alfredo Hermenegildo ("Cristóbal de Vîmes y las estrategias de la teatralización") discovers in the theater ofVîmes the transformation of political concerns into a theatrical text. Francisco Ruiz Ramón ("Cervantes dramaturgo: las 'figuras morales' en La Numancia) parts from the supposed theoretical opposition between epopeya and drama in order to consider the concept of "epic mediation" as a basic instrument for analyzing the dramatic function ofthe "moral figures" in Cervantes's La Numancia. Jesús Maestro ("Poética clásica y preceptiva lopesca en el teatro experimental cervantino. Sobre decoro y polifonía") ably reviews classical and modem interpretations of decorum, demonstrating that 191 192BCom, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2003) Cervantes's literary output—both dramatic and narrative—while seemingly entrenched in this rhetorical device, actually tends more toward an exercise in polyphony. Ángela Celis ("Planos de comunicación en las comedias cervantinas: el juego metateatral") touches upon Cervantes's incorporation ofimprovisation, as inherited from the commedia dell'arte, and his "modem" technique of metatheater, which James Parr fittingly describes as "un concepto genérico sugestivo pero superfluo" (127). Like the final page of Celis's study, several pages of Carlos Brito Diaz's contribution ("El teatro de los siglos de oro en Canarias: José de Anchieta y Cairasco de Figueroa") were left blank due to a printing error, or perhaps to a Cervantine manipulation of the manuscript. James Parr opens the second chapter with his study possibly titled "La época, los géneros dramáticos y el canon: tres contextos imprescindibles" (two distinct titles are listed). Parr recommends that we speak of "siglo XVI, o el quinientos (con minúscula), en vez del Renacimiento (con mayúscula)" (125), and he goes on to discuss Lope's development of tragicomedia and the canon ofGolden Age theater at American universities . Abraham Madroñal ("El entremés en la época de Felipe II y su relación con el entremés barroco") presents an outstanding analysis ofthe entremés in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, beginning with a detailed look at the word itself, and then moving on to similarities and differences between the entremés of the two centuries under Hapsburg míe. Jesús Maire ("El 'Códice de Villagarcía': doctrina, sermón y propaganda ") discusses Juan Bonifacio's plays in this codex. While quite simple in structure and action, the plays nevertheless reflect noteworthy customs of Spanish society during the second half ofthe sixteenth century. Franscisco Domínguez Matito ("El teatro en La Rioja a finales del Quinientos: escenarios y comediantes") opens the third chapter by digging into the municipal archives ofCalahorra and Logroño to put together a picture ofdramatic productions in La Rioja before the establishment ofLogroño'spatio de comedias in 1602. Agustín de la Granja ("Teatro de corral y pirotecnia") discusses the uses and abuses of fire and pyrotechnics in Spanish theater ofthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (demonic appearances...