Casa de las Comedias de Córdoba: 1602-1694. Reconstrucción documental, and: El Teatro Cervantes de Alcalá de Henares: 1602-1866. Estudio y documentos (review)

REVIEWS Garcia Gómez, Ángel María. Casa de las Comedias de Córdoba: 1602-1694. Reconstrucción documental. London: Tamesis, 1990 ("Fuentes para la Historia del Teatro en España," XV). 169 pages, & Coso Marín, Miguel Ángel, Mercedes Higuera Sánchez-Pardo y Juan Sanz Ballesteros. El Teatro Cervantes de Alcalá de Henares: 1602-1866. Estudio y documentos, id., 1989 ("Fuentes...," XVIII). 390 pages. By the end of 1602 two Spanish cities had witnessed performances at new theatres built for the purpose. Two more volumes in this well-known series now introduce us to theatrical spaces in Córdoba — which only survived 102 years — and Alcalá de Henares — which survives to this day. Angel Maria García Gómez points out that his account is based on documents alone, as neither plan, nor elevation, nor sketches survive, and he has provided an ingenious system of cross-references between the narrative text, the 29 documents , and the plans that may be inferred from them. When Cordoba's citizens decided they needed a permanent structure to house theatrical performances the city's decrepit jailhouse was selected, even though it was owned by the Hoces family, among others, who presented incessant obstacles to its conversion. The powerful cathedral chapter assisted, however , and it is interesting to know that a dramatist, of sorts, Don Luis de Gongora , was a member of the chapter's commission. Juan de Ochoa (1554-1606), a man renowned for his work on the mosque-cathedral devised the converted building. The casa de comedias, never referred to as a corral though having the form, functioned until 1694, was demolished in 1704, but may have left behind the thick old jailhouse walls in a still-existing structure. Pinelo's company acted at Christmas 1602, and the theatre must have been profitable, as the municipality was confident in overriding any remaining legal objections put up by the Hoces. García Gómez delineates very well the modifications in seating required by the social composition of the audience. The number of humble benches may have been reduced to make room for the tribunas (or tribunillas) of the 269 270BCom, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Winter 1992) notabilities. The number of seats hovered around 800, for a population in the Córdoba area of some 40,000. García Gómez proposes that the site of the casa de comedias is in the present-day Calle de Vellázquez Bosco, on the left facing the cathedral. Its women's entrance would be in the Callejón de las Flores. An archaeological survey of the present Museo de Ia Mezquita ought then to reveal vestiges of the theatrical space. The documents, grouped under the headings of "Componentes arquitectónicos " and "Aforo," also provide some linguistic items, special usages of terms like aposento and corredor, teatro, meaning the stage itself; sitio de la Ciudad, that is the seating reserved for the city councillors (10); terms used by builders, such as cumbres for overhead beams, and probably many others specific to Córdoba (32). There is a useful chart of approximate equivalents of measures (10). Work on aspects of the Córdoba casa de comedias extending beyond its presumed physical aspect has appeared in Garcia Gomez's other publications. The theatre at Alcalá de Henares has had quite a different fate. From being a corral like the one at Almagro it was converted into a roofed coliseo in 1769, a "Romantic" theatre in 1831, a movie-house in 1927, and finally storagespace in 1971. This rates it as one of the oldest continuously-used theatres in Europe, so that the question of how to restore it to a theatrical function is discussed in this book. Comediantes will be especially interested in the 33 documents assembled from the years 1601-1727 (77-111) as well as José Antonio Rayón's "Memoria histórica de la ocurrido en el Teatro de ... Alcalá de Henares, ... desde 1601 ... hasta 1832," here printed for the first time (239-313). The edifice stands on the central Plaza del Mercado, which had already been the locus of processions, bullfights and commedia dell'arte shows, though there is no façade on the square...