El libro vivo que es el teatro: Canon, actor y palabra en el Siglo de Oro by Evangelina Rodríguez Cuadros (review)

In El libro vivo que es el teatro, Evangelina Rodríguez Cuadros offers her perspective on the present and future states of early modern Spanish theater as it is performed, researched, and taught in the twenty-first century. She recognizes that in many cases Spanish Golden Age theater scholarship and performance has lagged behind that of other dramatic traditions. The author reflects on ways to make Renaissance and Baroque Spanish drama more appealing to a modern public and reiterates the need to remain on the cutting edge of current academic discussions. This is an uphill battle, Rodríguez Cuadros asserts, and it is necessary to take advantage of recent resources, especially the digital humanities, in which she has been extremely active for more than a decade. The book’s five chapters are composed of revised versions of previous studies, as well as unedited work.

In the first chapter, Rodríguez Cuadros discusses the critical treatment that early modern Spanish theater has received both in and out of Spain since the eighteenth century, pointing to how it has never been deemed universal because it has been saddled to the historiographical predisposition of Spanish literary criticism. This perspective changed, however, starting in the 1960s, and staging and adaptation especially came into the spotlight starting in 1986 with the introduction of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (CNTC), which initiated great advances in the performance and research of classical Spanish theater. In chapter 2, the author uses the auto sacramental as a point of departure for an insightful study of the actor in seventeenth-century Spain. Rodríguez Cuadros opts to examine this particular religious form because its production is better documented than other styles, and she proceeds to deconstruct the auto in order to reconstruct the role of the actor in relation to performance. Her third chapter astutely looks at theater theory by going beyond a mere comparison of opposing precepts. Rodríguez Cuadros also reflects on the concept of the ownership of a play text as it changes hands in the process of staging a dramatic work. Finally, the author continues her assessment of the role of actors then and now. Considerations of the adaptation of early modern works and what makes a successful adaptation are the topics of the fourth chapter. Here, Rodríguez Cuadros points to the insight of the actors, especially in their memoirs, and a collective memory of past performances for clues. She notes, however, that most adaptations of early modern Spanish theater were museum pieces with little innovation until the CNTC was formed. Her compelling discussion of adaptation adds to the continuing discourse among theater scholars, directors, and actors in their attempt to define and understand the term. The final chapter elucidates Rodríguez Cuadros’s approaches to teaching theater and the useful theories and other tools—especially her work with digital humanities in Valencia—that can help us overcome the challenges of comedia scholarship, pedagogy, and representation.

Rodríguez Cuadros’s commentary on early modern Spanish theater studies is germane, but it is at times presented in a nebulous manner, especially in the introduction. The chapters are replete with discerning insight, but they do not always mesh in a seamless manner. While each essay holds together on its own, on the whole the work lacks a clear thread to connect its parts. Another shortcoming is the almost complete disregard for research done outside of Spain and, perhaps even more disquieting, the omission of the performance tradition of early modern Spanish theater in North and South America. One example in particular stands out: the Siglo de Oro Spanish Drama Festival at the Chamizal National Park in El Paso, Texas, which started in 1976. The study does, nonetheless, present an exhaustive survey of work done in Spain.

In El libro vivo que es el teatro, Rodríguez Cuadros demonstrates a...