El Mentidero de Comediantes

EL MENTIDERO DE COMEDIANTES The sixth annual Festival de Teatro Clásico was held September 9-25, 1983 in Almagro (Ciudad Real). Thirteen theatrical companies from five different countries (Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, and the U.S.) presented plays and dramatic spectacles at four sites of the Manchegan town, including the restored 17th century Corral de Comedias. Although a guiding principle of the Festival, directed by César Oliva, was to provide an opportunity for foreign companies to present their interpretations of Spanish Golden Age comedias, the Festival embraced works by Berceo, Cervantes, Agustín de Rojas, Marivaux, Alexandre Dumas, and José Zorrilla. The theatricality of Don Quijote inspired three different dramatic adaptations of Cervantes' novel: Immagini dal Don Chisciotte (a theatrical improvisation by the Teatro di Ventura performed in the streets of Almagro): Soñando Ia Mancha: dramaturgia sobre el "Quijote» (T.E.M.A. de Albacete); and Don Chisciotte: Frammenti di un discorso teatrale (Teatro Populare di Roma). This third version takes as its point of departure the notion that Don Quijote sallies forth on his adventures in the same way that an actor enters the stage — in this case, a mad actor who ends up accepting his role as reality. According to the Director, Maurizio Scapurro, this adaptation treats the stage «como si fuera una pista de circo, donde se realiza un viaje mental e imaginario al mundo de la locura y la fantasía ilimitada, ya que la verdad del teatro, en sentido estricto, es la ilusión.» This version made its debut in Paris in June 1983, was included in the Festival di Spoleto this summer, and will be presented at the theater festival in San Francisco in spring, 1984. In addition , the Teatro di Ventura presented La Questione della Primavera, a«revised and updated version» of Cervantes' El retablo de ¡as maravillas, which included texts from the Bible, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Moliere, Nietzsche, Eliot, Majakovskij, and Lorca. Los milagros de Nuestra Señora (Teatro del Príncipe de Madrid) dramatized four of Gonzalo de Berceo's miracles («El clérigo ignorante,» 137 138BCom, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Summer 1 984)«La abadesa encinta,» «El clérigo y la flor,» y «El romero de Santiago»), accompanied by Gregorian chants. This production moved to the Capilla del Obispo in Madrid at the end of November, to critical acclaim. In Ñaque, o de piojos y actores, two actors from the Teatro Fronterizo de Barcelona enacted the picaresque life of itinerant players as described in Agustín de Rojas'E/ viaje entretenido (1603): «Ñaque es de dos hombres /. . .]; éstos hacen un entremés, algún poco de un auto, dicen unas octavas, dos o tres loas, llevan una barba de Zamarro, tocan el tamborino y cobran a ochavo /. . ./; viven contentos, duermen vestidos, caminan desnudos, comen hanbrientos y espúlganse el verano entre los trigos y en el invierno no sienten con el frío los piojos.» (The text of Ñaque can be found in PrimerActo, number 186). A new, stately, stylized version by Miguel Narros of José Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio (Teatro del Arte de Madrid), in which a teen-aged actress (Nuria Gallardo) plays«la escena del sofá» without sofa, had its debut in Almagro before moving to the Alcalá Palace and the TVE Studios in Madrid for the traditional November 1 performances. Lisboa 1500, o sonho do amor e do imperio (Teatro Ibérico de Lisboa) was based on two of Gil Vicente's works: El auto de las Indias and El viejo de Ia huerta. Two French companies provided Marivaux's Arlequin poli par l'amour (Théâtre Renversé de Paris) and a dramatic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' Les Trois Mousquetaires (Théâtre National de Marseille,«La Criée.») Three Spanish Golden Age plays were brought to the stage of the Corral de Comedias: Tirso's Don Gil de las calzas verdes, Calderón's A secreto agravio, secreta venganza, and Lope's El arrogante español. Since Don Gi/ de las calzas verdes (Pequeño Teatro de Madrid), which was presented at the Chamizal Festival in El Paso and the Festival Calderón in San Antonio in 1983, and A secreto agravio, secreta venganza...