Los libros de cuentas de los corrales de comedias de Madrid: 1706-1719. Estudio y documentos (review)

Reviews121 Varey, J. E. y Charles Davis. Los libros de cuentas de los corrales de comedias de Madrid: 1706-1719. Estudio y documentos. London and Madrid : Tamesis, 1992. "Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España," XVI. 445 pages. The Madrid theatre account books that survive are from a late and fairly unhappy period, the years either side of the date of the Treaty of Utrecht. This new collection thus complements "Fuentes" XI, a series of documents of other kinds. John Varey and Charles Davis divide the book into two sections : the accounts of the Corral de la Cruz and the Corral del Principe between 1708 and 1719 (and what survives of 1706-7), and a chronological list of plays performed. What we now have is an excellent source for dramatic and theatrical history: companies, prices, financial oscillations, and even numbers of spectators as these may be calculated from the gross receipts as passed on to the Hospicio. The 5,085 performances recorded provide so many line-items that a computerized analysis is helpful (52-60). We learn how much the ingenios received at the sale oftheir plays and autos, and in the case of dead authors like Calderón and Moreto how much the booksellers might ask for providing the text. It can be determined what was spent on posters, affixedjust before a season opened in the now more literate city, on musicians, particularly the favored Salvador de Navas, and on títeresy volatines allowed in Lent (though never on Fridays). As a menace to all of this, we are reminded, hovered the circumstance that this was wartime, and playgoers, actors or even the Government might quit Madrid. Among the line-items appear the expected payments for backdrops, statues, animals and costumes, and more particularly the monte, a scenic device masked by boughs and ivy, and the despeñadero, which sounds like a dangerous prop for intrepid actors (though the six reales paid al que hace a Ycaro suggests that a stunt-man actually plunged, 92). At this moment in history, when serious competition was to be met with from Italian theatricals (cf. "Fuentes," XI), there were only two companies resident all year long in Madrid, alternating in the corrales. This appears to have led to a strict hierarchy among players taking the role, of damas I, II, and III as well as galanes, barbas, graciosos and músicos. In such times of dearth we may expect to read of family relationships among the remaining actors (Cf. "Fuentes," II). There are a few anecdotes. The couple Sabina Pascual and Antonio Quirate had bad luck in 1712-1713. He died just as a performance was to begin, the day after Christmas, while she fell and sustained injury performing in El diablo mudo the following July 5th. As it 122BCom, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Summer 1994) happened the músico Pedro José de Castro died the same day as Quirate, and this held up the performances for the Compañía de Garcés. The latter evidently could not subsequently avoidjail for debt. The editors attempt to quantify the attendances by audiences, calculating them from the payments made to the Madrid Hospicio, though they concede there many variables, compensation paid to the authorities entitled to seats, which latter may not have been filled, and the like. The theatrical year is recapitulated: its commencement with a capa y espada play of Calderón's; Easter to Corpus Christi, the season for autos sacramentales, held in the corrales in wartime, and practically always by Calderón; a second half-season ofmainly capa y espada pieces, very seldom by contemporary writers; a spectacular saints' drama, quite often recent, at Christmas; then an end-of-season or carnival piece, perhaps a "magical" drama. It is also curious to notice that El castigo de la miseria, the Spanish equivalent to a Scrooge drama, was a favorite at Carnival, not at Christmas. Varey and Davis set all this out in useful tables (61-66). The rest of the book assesses the content of the repertory. Some plays cannot be identified, at least under the names they are given ^Desconocidos " 428), while the relative popularity of dramatists is...