Espacios dramáticos en el teatro español medieval, renacentista y barroco (review)

106BCom, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Summer 1998) estas preferencias y gracias a los medios pecuniarios y técnicos que tenía a su alcance, Calderón se aprovechó de la mitología como director de escena: "[las] máquinas, música, [texto] literario [son] los que presentan los senderos para su nuevo lenguaje: el de las comedias mitológicas, de la puesta en escena" (R. Maestre, 1989, 152). En este punto, sólo queda decir que para comprender los entresijos de este código intertextual y plurisignificativo , resultado de "la fusión coherente de lo visual, lo sonoro musical y lo poético" (I. Arellano, 1995, 93), la mencionada apuesta interpretativa de R. Maestre se revela imprescindible. Emilio J. Sales Dasí Valencia Regueiro, José M. Espacios dramáticos en el teatro español medieval, renacentista y barroco. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1996. Hardcover. 151 pp. The recent plethora of studies devoted to the areas of scenography, space and staging in Spanish drama (Bibliography ofPublications on the Comedia 1995-96 in Bulletin ofthe Comediantes Vol. 49, summer 1997, pp. 126219 ) is joined by this concise study of the function of dramatic space in nine works which are chronologically organized in order to follow the development of theater as it erratically moved toward the creation ofan autonomous dramatic world (Regueiro's Md), as separate from the everyday world (Mc). The dramatic world or "second world" is associated with a sustained illusion of fictionality and with emerging dramatic qualities such as characterization and transformation, scene demarcation devices, introitos, stage decorations, authentic garments and the like, while the everyday or "first" world relates to reality and the spectators of drama. Each of the book's five chapters examines the unique relationships between these two worlds and the spaces where their separation is not clearly marked, as in Encina's Églogas VII and Vili, where the spectators ofthe ducal court are integrated into the staged scene, or in Comedia Himenea, in which the rustic shepherd's description of his sexual prowess in the prologue creates an intermediate space mediating the transition between the two worlds. The study prioritizes succession of spaces over narration of action as the prime factor in plot summation. Theoretical quandaries are summarily dispatched in chapter one. While incorporating many critical viewpoints, most notably those of Issacharoff, Reviews107 Pavis, Ubersfeld and Elam, the discussion sometimes confuses as it lacks clearly defined terms. This is mindful ofFernando Cantalapiedra's words in Semiótica teatral del siglo de oro (Reichenberger, 1995) when referring to theatrical space: "Todo está dicho, o casi todo, sobre el espacio...todo estudio parcial, de un código aislado de los demás, conduce inevitablemente al fracaso " (260). While Reguiero's stated point of departure will be the written text in its staged potential, based on the fact that the system ofspatial relations is sustainable from the text, although not with the simultaneity and visual succession portrayed in the performance thereof (2), his basic principle is a dichotomization of spaces and the worlds they represent. Not all critics are in agreement. Supported by Kurt Spang, Cantalapiedra questions theoretical underpinnings which establish dichotomies between narrative, textual, dramatic or staged space for the simple reason that all "narration" of "textual" space is always carried out on the denominated "dramatic" space, and this space in turn can be narrated (261). Greimasian semiotics (Sémiotique: Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, Paris, Hachette , 1979) posits many more kinds oftheatrical spaces—topical, paratopical , heterotopical, utopical, scenic, parascenic, etc. which are not even mentioned in this study. Regueiro sidesteps theoretical arguments for simplicity 's sake, but the relationships among text, space and world as well as the movement and positioning within spaces, contextualized meanings of space and some of the semiotic terminologies (juncture, inclusion, separation , evacuation, etc.) deserve coverage. Unfortunately, many of the observations about the use and interelatedness of dramatic spaces in the book are obvious and lacking in novelty. To say, as Regueiro does, that medieval liturgical plays do not show a clear separation ofthe dramatic and everyday worlds because the dramatic world is not inscribed in the hypothetical and artificial realm but rather in a liturgical context (29) seems patent, but also...