2013 Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal

Misterio del Cristo de los Gascones

Theater and cinema depend on a captive audience for their success, something that Nao d’amores’s performance of Misterio del Cristo de los Gascones certainly had on the evening of March 8 at the Chamizal National Memorial. How does a theater company, in front of a motley, twenty-first-century audience of theater scholars, native speakers of Spanish, and Anglophones, produce a religious play using a life-sized, wooden marionette as the main character and still come away from the Chamizal Siglo de Oro Drama Festival with one of the most captivating performances in recent memory? In a session at the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT) Symposium the day after the performance, one Golden Age Scholar exclaimed that the public had viewed a play that, following conventional wisdom, should not have connected with its audience, but did. In more than twenty-five years as an employee at the Chamizal National Memorial, one park ranger indicated that he had never seen so many audience members remain in their seats for a question-and-answer session with a theater troupe. On that evening, Nao d’amores defied conventional wisdom concerning interest in religious-themed plays with their exquisite use of cancioneros and other medieval texts in order to create a stirring tribute to the medieval wooden figure of Christ found in the Church of San Justo in Segovia.

Narrated primarily from the loving, yet anguished, viewpoint of the Virgin Mary, Misterio touched on some key points in the life of Christ, from his infancy to his eventual resurrection. The script, formed by combining a variety of excerpts from numerous medieval texts, may not unquestionably distinguish itself from other accounts with similar themes. However, the conscientious decisions by the play’s director, Ana Zamora, and those who work with her, make Misterio del Cristo los Gascones the cultural gem that it has become during the six years of its existence.

In this performance, Nao d’amores seamlessly joined medieval and modern staging techniques and production values to make the necessary connection with its audience. Sitting in a half-circle around the central acting area, the troupe’s musicians used instruments, including a vihuela, a zanfona, a cornamusa, and other chirimías, to provide an inspiring soundtrack that greatly enhanced the acoustic experience. The visual spectacle, though simple in nature, was equally impressive, particularly when factoring in the challenges of getting the audience to look beyond the wooden marionette to see Christ as a living, breathing, animate individual. By Ana Zamora’s own admission during a plenary session at the AHCT Symposium, the acting troupe’s goal was not to rehash countless depictions of Christ the hero come to save humanity, but rather to portray an individual with whom people can relate. As two actors dressed entirely in black moved the wooden figure around the stage against the dark backdrop, and even into the audience, the character represented by the marionette came to life as a playful, loving, buoyant individual intent on making others happy. Ironically, the decision to bring the character of Christ to life on stage by means of a wooden puppet may have proven more effective than if Nao d’amores had chosen to use a real actor, instead. Nevertheless, the well-planned and meticulously rehearsed movements of the two actors who handled the figure and moved its arms and legs more than compensated for its inability to change facial expressions.

By the play’s close, Nao d’amores had thoroughly demonstrated its ability to synthesize past and present realities in an aesthetically pleasing performance. Rather than create yet another inaccessible, stoic, and mysterious character of Christ, the acting troupe made him an innocent, loving, and accessible individual. The group adeptly handled what often proves too unwieldy a theme for other professional acting companies. Such a production requires diverse talents, rigorous research, and a firm understanding of primitive and modern theater. The religious subject matter of the play is a step toward recognizing the importance of mystery plays and autos in the culture of medieval and early modern Spain. Chamizal...