Teatros y vida teatral en Tudela: 1563-1750. Estudio y documentos (review)

160BCom, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Summer 1993) In closing I must add a personal note to the effect that the opinions ascribed to me in this study do not reflect my current position as presented in Myth and Mythology in the Theater of Calderón... (1988), a work to which, I must assume, Professor Greer did not have access when she completed her manuscript. Thomas Austin O 'Connor State University ofNew York at Binghamton Pascual Bonis, Maria Teresa. Teatros y vida teatral en Tudela: 15631750 . Estudio y documentos. London: Tamesis Books (en colaboraci ón con el Gobierno de Navarra), 1990. "Fuentes para la Historia del Teatro en España," XVII. 21 1 pp. So far as is known, not one stone stands upon another ofwhat was the playhouse at Tudela, though, as M.T. Pascual Bonis points out in this work, the city must have been as lively a theatrical center as Navarre's capital, Pamplona. In short, a representative small, though never prosperous , cathedral town. Everything about its theater has to be inferred from documents, and they happen to be abundant. A selection of them according to length may convey the best impression. The longest (101-132) concerns litigation with the friars of the adjacent convent of La Merced. The theater in Tudela had hospital patronage , in fact the firstpatio was within its precincts, from 1597 to 1623, by which latter date a specially built playhouse was needed. For its construction the hospital acquired some ruinous houses that had come into the possession of an adolescent student, and on the site erected a playhouse that was to last until 1717. The friars kept alleging they were disturbed at vespers and at bedtime by the audiences, the music and the drummers who announced the plays (there being no playbills in largely illiterate Tudela). There was, however, enthusiasm for theatricals even among those who never attended the shows, but rather watched the parade ; both artisans and clerics were prepared to testify against the friars, who lost their case (118). The next longest piece (157-165) concerns an incident in the theater, when some cross-dressing men invaded the corridor and camarilla (or side-esplanade) intended strictly for women, that is, the more select female patrons; where the other women sat is not clear. The female component of the audience seems always to have been the greater (60). Reviews161 Some clerics, together with a youthful lay companion, got themselves into the camarilla dressed in women's apparel and caused a memorable scandal, leading to jail sentences. One of these, in the case of a cleric, was commuted to "hours of community service" (164), as a waiter at mealtimes on patients in the hospital patronizing the theater. The question of women in the theater leads to that of their literacy. They signed contracts as actresses and autoras (86); could they all, in 1603, learn their parts by reading them? A third long document concerns a woman also, this time as hominis confusio. Late in Tudela's theatrical history, the winter of 1746-47, a leading city father, of the influential Mur family, became smitten with the actress Maria Ignacia de Sola, who appeared in the town suddenly, muger de buen porte con su tontillo (192), muy dizidora en sus dichos (196) —that is, a force from outside, very apt to impair the whole emotional equilibrium of a rustic small town. She was always credited with being con decencia vestida (191), but her desaogo (193) led to the questioning of Mur about his maldad, decauimientofsic, for decevimiento?] y escándalo. He had publicly invited her to his balcony to see the show (Tudela's theater having been demolished by then), audibly given her the ostentatious title of madama, induced her to give private performances of songs and excerpted relaciones (190, romances?)—and provided himselfwith loaded pistols in case he were molested. One is left with the vignette of a male Madame Bovary risking all to live just for once! A fourth section reveals much (173-178) about actors and autores and their obligations. Pascual Bonis points out that Tudela's theater was not merely intended for comedias, but also had to feature títeres...