A Matter of Style

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Sturm und Drang - Goethe, German Theatre in the 18th Century and a New Theatre Aesthetic

Sturm und Drang - Goethe, German Theatre in the 18th Century and a New Theatre Aesthetic

Goethe was born at Frankfort-on-Main in 1749. His early education was received at home, first under his father, and then with tutors, though the influence of his mother was strongly marked. In his Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe tells of his early interest in puppet-plays and theaters, and in the French company of actors which remained in his native city after the Seven Years' War. These early years were devoted to literary effort, though the youth found time for at least one love-affair before reaching the age of sixteen.

In 1765 he went to Leipzig and entered the University. There a second love-affair inspired a number of juvenile lyrics. Two minor plays also belong to this period. As a result of illness he was sent home, and during his convalescence he read and studied. When, in 1770, after his recovery, he went to Strassburg to study law, he was completely changed. He took up in earnest his work of criticizing French art and standing for a truly German art. He was greatly influenced by Herder, who showed him the beauty of Shakespeare. Another love-affair went far to inspire him in his first important lyrics, which were to mark a new epoch in German poetry. Götz von Berlichingen was written at Strassburg (though not published until 1773); with this play Shakespeare's art first triumphed on the German stage, and the literary movement known as Sturm und Drang was inaugurated. Goethe received his degree in 1771 and returned to Frankfurt, where he began to practice his profession. Friendships, further love-affairs, and writing, occupied the years previous to his Weimar residence.

Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774) brought Goethe widespread fame. The first studies for Faust also date from this time, and a number of complete plays. His trip to Weimar was made after repeated invitations by the "hereditary prince," Karl August. At Weimar Goethe was entrusted with state affairs. The years between his arrival there and his famous Italian trip are chiefly memorable for some of the poet's best lyrics, a large part of Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung, and Iphigenie auf Tauris. In 1786 he went to Italy. The final version of Iphigenie (1787), Torquato Tasso (1790), Egmont (1788), and the Fragment of Faust (1790), were all influenced by this journey. He returned to Weimar in 1788. There he lived with Christiane Vulpius for many years, finally marrying her in 1806. During the stormy years of the French Revolution Goethe took part in the French Campaign in 1792 and the Siege of Mainz in 1793.

The Revolution meant little to him but the unsettling of the government and order. A few very uneven plays of his bear witness to his dissatisfaction. In 1791 he was appointed director of the Ducal theater. At the same time he was occupied with biological, physical, botanical, and chemical research, and many works appeared with the results of his inquiries. The revised and extended version of Wilhelm Meister was included in his Neue Schriften (1792-1800), and exerted great influence.

In 1794 he and Schiller became friends, and Goethe collaborated with the latter in his Horen. Schiller stimulated Goethe and encouraged him to further literary efforts. In 1798 Goethe published his epic Hermann und Dorothea and many ballads. Ten years later appeared the first part of Faust, and the next year the novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften, which was very popular. Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit, part I, was published in 1811. Additional parts appeared in 1812, 1814, and the last, after his death. His wife died in 1816. The next year he retired from his position as theater director. The second part of Faust appeared in 1833. He died at Weimar in 1832.

Throughout a great part of Goethe's work there is a stream of criticism which renders it difficult to re-construct a complete critical theory. The various versions of the Wilhelm Meister novel, even Faust itself, are critical in spirit. But it is in the miscellaneous prefaces, articles, letters, and the Eckermann Gespräche--Conversations--that his critical powers are best seen. Goethe's broad outlook, his sympathy with and his deep knowledge of man and art, gave him a most catholic view, and possibly the best statement of his creed is found in Calvin Thomas' Goethe:

“… the simple creed that informs Goethe, and gives him his criteria for judging the work of others. It is that the artist as such must have no creed; that is no creed derivable from the intellect or accountable to it. Rules, conventions, theories, principles, inhibitions of any sort not born of his own immediate feeling, are no concern of his. They proceed from an inferior part of human nature, being the work of gapers and babblers."

Exercises
Goethe believed that we are not separate from the objects around us and the aesthetics of our surroundings. Look at a painting or a sketch of a person or character which shows them in a space surrounded by objects or nature. Now start to create that character not from their own internal world but by making the external world and the objects and surroundings create the internal world of the character you portray. Let external aesthetics create the personality and inner world of the character you create.

Monday, August 18, 2014

The Comedy of Manners

The comedy of manners is a style of comedy that reflects the life, ideals and manners of upper class society. The players must strive to maintain the mask of social artifice whilst revealing to the audience what lies behind such manners. This form of comedy seeks to make attire and social commentary through making the real artificial and the artificial real.

In England, the Restoration period heralded an exciting period in theatre. Prior to this period, the theatres were closed by the Puritans and Commonwealth government between 1642 and 1660 due to Cromwell’s conservative rule. Conversely, Charles II was fond of frivolities, women the theatre and under his reign drama flourished once more. Audiences were predominately from aristocratic backgrounds.

The Comedy of Manners has its origins in the ancient plays of Menander from the New Comedy of the Greek theatre in the fourth century BC and then in the work of Roman writers Plautus and Terence. The actual Restoration period was noted for its comedies although more serious drama was produced by writers such as John Dryden and Thomas Otway.

Some say that the English Comedy of Manners began with Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and then can be seen at its best in Restoration comedy and that the form continued later with playwrights like Wilde, Shaw and even Coward, Orton and Neil Simon.

As a style, Comedy of Manners is characterized by:

· A flamboyant display of witty, blunt sexual dialogue

· Boudoir or bedroom-based intrigues

· Sensual innuendos

· Rakish behavior

Conventions include:

· Constancy and inconstancy in love

· Sex as a tempting force

· Love in various forms

· Characters clashing over love entanglements and intrigues

· Settings in the town or scenes that portrayed country life as boring

· Clergy and professional men being treated with distain or indifference

During the Victorian Age in England in the 19^th Century, a resurgence of interest in Restoration Drama and the Comedy of Manners happened. Oscar Wilde and some other playwrights perfected elements of Restoration Comedy and the Comedy of manners to develop plays that mocked or made comment on Victorian society and its social divisions and mores. One of Wilde’s most successful plays which does this is The Importance of Being Earnest.

In a Comedy of Manners, humor is achieved in many ways especially through the satiric treatment of those who allowed themselves to be deceived or who attempted to deceive others. Laughter is often directed against the fop, the pretender at wit, the old trying to be young or the old man with a beautiful and youthful wife.

Prologues and Epilogues were important and plays would often begin or end with special pieces such as poetry, often delivered in a coarse, boisterous and hilarious fashion mocking high forms of Romantic poetry and verse.

The Restoration stage was poorly lit due to hooplike chandeliers that generally obstructed the vision of the audience. Oil lamps and candles were used and some theatres even used these below the actors at the front of the stage like footlights.

Dress was the contemporary dress of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries where every possible part of the body was adorned - large brimmed plumed hat, heavy periwig with curls tumbling over the forehead and down to the shoulders, a square cut coat and a waistcoat hanging to the knees, wide stiff cuffs and ruffles reaching to the knuckles and ribbons on every unmarked surface. Women wore gowns with bell shaped skirts and sleeves with high mantillas and veils. Indoors, women were allowed to show their faces, hands, necks and bosoms, but outside, they wore large hooded cloaks. As time progressed, men showed more of their legs and women's attire became more clinging and revealing. The men often wore eye patches.

Both sexes wore excessive make-up, false noses, beards, moustaches, powder, rouge, pencil, lipstick and beauty patches. Facial expression was avoided because it tended to crack the facial make-up.

The voice was brilliant and brittle, witty in language, often prose was used, and rapid repartee was the norm. Actors imitated the Parisian aristocratic style of address with its rich heritage from Moliere. Tone was used to convey emotional quality to the audience and precise pronunciation was encouraged. Singing, dancing, posture, gesture and walking were all taught as special training schools in Britain. Intricate vocal pauses and timing was developed and tempo of delivery was rapid.

As Restoration comedies were predominately presentational, movement was focused on entering and exiting through doors. Action took place mainly downstage on the apron of the stage. Highly graceful and elegant patterns of movement were encouraged and all actions should be precise and inventive. Gesticulation was very important and an entire array of facial grimacing, winking and smiling was developed.

The fop (an effeminate male) was fashionable and also the butt of much of the sarcastic repartee in the plays. They minced, strutted and used copious flowing hand gestures and posing. Female actors flirted over and behind fans, half-masks and handkerchiefs. Bows and curtsies in the seventeenth century manner were used directed both at other actors and the audience. When one character passed another, they would often perform the en passant, a slight bow from the waist with one foot sweeping in an arc around the other foot without losing the pace of the walk. Men always kissed a lady's hand when leaving, held their hands away from their body to emphasise their lace cuffs, handkerchiefs and waling sticks and canes.

Woman balanced enormous and outlandish hats and carried a muff that was used not just for warming the hands but also to carry secret objects such as notes. They walked in a curved, graceful fashion and held their dresses slightly off the floor.

A major distinction between characterisation in Restoration comedy and French Neoclassic comedy is the actor's sense of involvement with a character. Whereas serious involvement is necessary for playing most of the major roles in Moliere, in Restoration Comedy, performing will probably be more successful if a certain level of detached objectivity is retained. Although the manners of the time were said to be realistically portrayed on stage, this is not the same meaning as realism on stage as we now know it. It was indeed, an exaggeration of common traits of the aristocracy.

Modern day sit-coms like Keeping up Appearance, Fawlty Towers, Birds of a Feather, Men Behaving Badly and Ab Fab have some examples of The Comedy of Manners. The films of Woody Allen sometimes rely on some elements of Comedy of Manners but sometimes this is done without the gestural elements evident in many Comedy of Manners pieces.

Lessons and Practical Workshops

‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is a good play to use for workshops on the Comedy of Manners as a theatre style. The play makes fun of the manners, social class and social expectations and mores.

Some activities which could be undertaken are:

Read, discuss and workshop key scenes from The Importance of Being Earnest. Discuss how different characters could be physically represented and what gestures and actions to sum up the characters’ attitudes and social class. These gestures and actions could be exaggerated to help to mock the character and their social class. Improvise around the scenes and the social and physical constraints of character, setting, time and space to explore significant themes from the focus scene or character.

Alternatively, students can take a well-known story such as Cinderella or The Three Little Pigs and they could explore and present it as a Comedy of Manners piece. The Ugly Sisters and the Step Mother can be shown to be a product of a Middle Class imitating an Upper Class. Gestural acting and even Freeze Framing can be used to refine gestures and the stage picture to increase the commentary and mockery of pretensions and class structure. The story of The Three Little Pigs can also be explored in a Comedy of Manners style. Many other fairy tales can work in this way.

Alternatively, video-clips can be used to work on vocal aspects of characters for Comedy of Manners style pieces. Steve Nallon has a great video of a workshop where he works on vocal aspects of Margaret Thatcher in a Comedy of Manners style. This could be used as a basis for a lesson:

http://www.nallon.com/?page_id=39&video=creating_a_voice3&title=thatcher_years_05

Simon Callow’s video of his lessons in ‘Acting in Restoration Comedy’ has been made into a book but the following link to the video can be used as the basis to a lesson or part of the video can be played and various techniques can be tried out and then the next technique showed on the video can be played:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7fWAgwwjY

References

Aitken, M. & Callow, C. 2000. Acting in Restoration Comedy. Applause Books, London.

Crawford, J. 2007. Acting in Person and in Style. W.C. Brown Publications.

Hirst, D.L. 1979. The Comedy of Manners. Methuen. London.

Hughes, L. 1972. A Century of English Farce. Princeton University Press. Princeton.

McMillan, S. ed. 1997. Restoration and Eighteenth Century Comedy. W.W. Norton Press. London.

Nettleton, A.G.H. 1992. British Dramatists from Dryden to Sheridan. Methuen. London.

Styan, J.L. 1986. Restoration Comedy in Performance. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Websites

Steve Nallon - Margaret Thatcher in a Comedy of Manners style:

http://www.nallon.com/?page_id=39&video=creating_a_voice3&title=thatcher_years_05

Simon Callow ‘Acting in Restoration Comedy’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7fWAgwwjY

The Restoration Comedy Project:

http://alojamientos.us.es/restoration/

Restoration Theatre (University of St. Andrews)

http://www.standrews.ac.uk/academic/english/murray/Restoration/Front.html

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

French Neoclassical Theatre - Textor to Racine to Moliere

French Neoclassical theatre had its origins in the late 15th century and continued through until the mid sixteenth century. It grew out of a renewed interest in France in Latin and Ancient Greek and the plays of these ancient cultures. This theatre was based on the Ancient Greek ‘unities’ of time, place and action which was joined to notions of verisimilitude, decorum and a new French dramaturgy which saw the writing of pieces in verse and sometimes in everyday French language. Tragedies of this period modeled themselves particularly on Ancient Greek plays and the principles of ‘unities’ while Comedies embraced farce and the stylistic elements of the Commedia dell Arte.

This form of theatre can be seen to start with Alexandre Hardy, who wrote over 500 plays (only 34 survive). Hardy's plays were mostly pastoral comedies (a form developed in Italy in the 1400's) and they grew out of a general interest and love of the satyr plays of antiquity. The central themes were normally love and the triumph of love and although these plays first started to become popular around 1470, they did not reach their peak until the 16th century. Many of these plays follow a five-act structure, used poetic dialogue, ghosts, messengers, and a chorus ignoring verisimilitude and decorum. Violent scenes and acts were often depicted on stage in the middle of comic plays.

More classic conventions and forms started to gather impetus when Cathérine de Médicis married into the French royal family bringing with her a love for the arts and the adoption of Italian theatre conventions and styles into French theatre. Later, Louis XIV, who came to the throne in 1643 and lived in luxury at Versailles, was a strong supporter of the arts and staged court productions, masque and themed parties and balls. This royal patronage saw the development of popular performing arts in the seventeenth century in France including theatre, ballet, baroque opéra, baroque music. Versailles became the centre of these cultural events as overseen by Louis' First Minister Cardinal Richelieu who even started l’Académie Française in 1636. For theatre and the Performing Arts, Richelieu and l’Académie Française saw the classical Greek unity of time, action, and place, along with verisimilitude and decorum as central to performances and writing.

The origin of the French Neoclassical Theatre start in France in the early 1500’s with playwrights such as Ravius Textor who penned a number of Latin Dialogi, which were essentially florid dramatic monologue verses modelled on Ovid and Virgil. These were performed by students at the university from 1501 until 1524. Textor's writings are essentially literary and poetic and reinvigorated an interest in classical verse as a written and a performed art form. Another playwright, Roilletus, wrote, published and performed publicly, three Latin tragedies in 1536. Other Latin plays were performed in both latin and French from the late 1530's through until 1545 and George Buchanan and Muretus were prolific during this period and influential in creating French verse forms to recreate plays based on Oedipus, Medea and Antigone.

In 1552, Étienne Jodelle wrote both the first neoclassical tragedy and neoclassical comedy. They were entitled Cléopâtre captive and Eugène respectively. Eugène followed a Roman farcical style, again, looking back to the past to write in the present. Cléopâtre captive was performed before the king, with Jodelle in the lead role. This established neoclassical ideas in the minds of all. By 1572, Jean de Taille published a preference for the rules, and by that time, most authors were using neoclassical ideals. Many other neoclassical playwrights became popular during the sixteenth century, as well as one theatrical manager. Robert Garnier wrote eight tragedies between 1568-1583. Most of his tragedies were adapted from Euripides or Seneca, but his most well-know (and least characteristic) play was Bradamante , which he wrote in 1582.

An important group in the early 1600's grew out of this tradition. The Pléiades were a group of writers and critics who studied and rewrote classical works and developed a system of poetic and grammar principles for the development of literature and the performing arts. The Pléiades eventually developed into l’Académie Française in 1639.

Valleran LeComte was the first important theatre manager because he was the first to attempt to provide high-quality theatre to a paying audience. He headed a troupe called "The King’s Players," which was a title honoring that they had performed before the king. Between 1598-1612, Valleran’s troupe was the most influential in Paris.

The three most popular neoclassical playwrights were Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, and Molière even though stylistically they write in different ways. Pierre Corneille was writing in the 1630's and he broke the rules of unity as defined by Cardinal Richelieu and the Académie Française. His most famous and popular play, 'Le Cid' which was performed in 1637 was popular but heavilt criticised for breaking the rules of unity. Whereas Jean Racine is a true neo-classicist who wrote impressive plays using the boundaries of the Académie Française unities. His most popular plays were his tragedies the 1664 play 'Andromache' and 'Bérénice' which was performed in 1670. They found favour with Louis XIV and the general theatre going public. Many aspects of Ancient Greek drama are evident in his plays such as characters having a fatal flaw. By this time in France, women were not allowed to act on stage again. Racine eventually left the theatre and playwrighting became a histographer for Louis XIV and eventually died in 1684 after writing religious plays near the end of his life.

Enter a new master of theatre - Molière. Molière is the most famous French playwright of this period and is known mostly today for his mastery of farce. He freely depicted humans with all their flaws and used comic situations to show and parody archetypes or character-types of his times to attack specific individuals and make fun of the general follies and weaknesses of humans and human society.

Molière primarily used characters based on the stock characters of the Commedía dell’Arte although he combined this largely improvised and blank verse form with forms developed by the Académie, such as neoclassical verse such as rhyming couplets. Molière embraced the neoclassical theatre convention of the deus ex machina as shown in his most popular play Tartuffe where the conflict is resolved in the end with a letter arriving from the king solving all the problems and providing an external and seemingly arbitrary conclusion to the drama. Molière developed his own theatre troupe and theatre venue called the Palais Royal (Theatre du Palais-Royal or Salle du Palais-Royal) and was situated on RueSaint-Honore in Paris.

In 1665, Louis XIV made Molière’s troupe 'The King's Men'. Molière died in 1673 while acting in 'The Imaginary Invalid'. The last "juro" had hardly passed his lips when he was seized with a convulsion. The curtain was lowered, and he was taken to his home where he took his last breath. Because Moliere was associated with the theatre, he was refused a Church burial but when Louis became distraught at this Molière was buried at night in a small parish. Not long after King Louis brought together under his patronage the Molière-Marais groups into the Comédie Française.

French theatres of this period appeared long and rectangular from the outside and many were built from renovated indoor tennis courts. Inside, the stage was dominated by a proscenium arch, with a back wall like an amphitheater for acoustic reasons. There was usually a small upper platform, at about 13 feet high above the stage used for special effects or to form a picture frame around or near the stage.

In 1640, Giacomo Torelli was brought to Paris to design scenery and to install scene-changing equipment. He built a new theatre, the Petit Bourbon, which utilized a pole-and-chariot system (a variation on the pulley scene changing system). He also introduced the proscenium arch stage to France. He also installed the pole-and-chariot system in the Palais Royale. His designs and scene-shifting machines meant that Italian painted scenic design started to dominate the French stage.

Other theatres were operating in France during the time of the strong influence of Italian scenic design. By 1673, there were five governmentally funded theatres: l’Opéra, Commédia dell’Arte , the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the Théâtre du Marais, and Molière’s troupe. During the 1640’s, the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Théâtre du Marias converted to proscenium arch stages as well. The Palais Royal was the first proscenium arch in France, and the first to use the Italian scene-shifting (pole-and-chariot) machinery.

French Neoclassical Theatre Exercises and Discussion

One interesting way to approach French Neoclassical theatre is to explore some comic speeches that depend on the audience. Some dialogues in pieces by Moliere such as ‘The Misanthrope’ depend on the actors as the characters working on getting the support of the audience for their argument or what they are saying in an almost Jerry Springer style. Look at the following video-clip and then take the following dialogue and have actors compete for the support of the audience for their argument and their character.

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n26LrSYsztk

Now you try it with the following dialogue from Moliere’s The Misanthrope between Celimene (a young woman who is the object of several men’s desire including Alceste) and Alceste (the man male character in the play).

Act 2

SCENE III.

Alceste: What! Am I never to have you to myself? Why are you so ready to receive the world? Can you not endure for a single moment of your day to deny yourself to visitors?

Celimene: Do you wish him to quarrel with me?

Alceste: You show him a deference that I do not like.

Celimene: He is a man who would never forgive me if he saw that I considered him intrusive.

Alceste: Is that a reason for disturbing yourself?

Celimene: Heavens, yes! Good-will is of value among our fellows. He belongs to a set who, I scarcely know why, have acquired at court a right to be heard. They manage to obtain an entrance everywhere; and though, 'tis true, they may not serv us, they are able to do us a vast deal of harm. Therefore, no matter what support one has elsewhere, we ought never to quarrel with such babbling persons.

Alceste: In short, whatever happens and whoever comes, you find good reasons to see all the world; and these precautions about your lawsuit…

Other Exercises and Questions to consider

Molière‎ is saying that society, specifically French society in his day, is shallow and empty-headed. What would it be like to be a member of that society and watch such a play? Would you get the joke? Would you be offended? Would you think Molière‎ is talking about somebody else?

Present a short monologue that portrays the worst stereotypes about teenagers. Have your students listen and then discuss their reaction. What is their response? Do they get the joke? Are they offended? Do they think you must be referring to somebody else?

Write a journal entry on the notion of fake friends. What is it like to know someone is not your real friend? Have you ever been in that situation?

Discuss the notion of fake friends with the class, especially the idea of someone being nice to your face and then gossiping behind your back. Celimine in the play is often a fake friend, doing just that to the suitors in the play and to other women. In the end she gets caught, is that satisfying?

In groups write modern scenes that explore the concept of “the fake friend.”

Monday, July 14, 2014

Spain’s Golden Age of Theatre – From Liturgical Drama to Zarzuela and Comedia Nueva

Spain’s Golden Age of Theatre – From Liturgical Drama to Zarzuela and Comedia nueva

Introduction to Spain’s Golden Age of Theatre

Just as Italy and England had their own its own theatre Renaissance, Spain had its renaissance or Golden Age of theatre. Spain’s Golden Age went for almost 100 years from 1585 through until about 1685. The sources of influence for the emerging national theatre of Spain of this period were as diverse as the theatre that nation ended up producing. Storytelling traditions originating in Italian Commedia dell’arte, minstrel entertainments and long poetic narratives and liturgical dramas are some of the influences. This period saw the performing arts being patronized and saw not only an increase in the number of plays written and performed but also the emergence of some of the greatest playwright’s in the Spanish language. The patronage and support of Spanish aristocrats meant that theatre flourished in Spain during this period. This meant that theatre also opened itself up to the working classes and was a highly accessible art form for all Spanish people.

The number and variety of Spanish plays written and performed during the Golden Age was unprecedented in the history of world theatre, surpassing, for example, the output of the English Renaissance writers by three to four times. Around 30,000 plays were produced over this period in Spain and they varied in style and subject matter. In its own time, this prolific production helped to contribute to theatre's accessibility in Spain.

What separated Spain’s Renaissance in theatre from the renaissance dramas of Italy and England is that Spain’s renaissance simultaneously included secular and religious dramas and saw the development of both forms. Additionally, state sponsored drama existed harmoniously alongside popular for-profit theatre, with many theatre artists contributing significantly to both. Stylistically, plays ranged from commedia style plays to dramas to operas to greek style tragedies. Some specifically Spanish forms of drama such as Zarzuela and Comedia nueva were developed

Spanish Liturgical Drama

From the 12^th Century onwards, Spain had developed a rich history of Liturgical Drama. The oldest Liturgical Drama Auto de los Reyes Magos which dates from around the 1145 was written in old Spanish. By the 16^th century, Easter Passion Plays and Christmas Liturgical Dramas (particularly those that told the story of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus) were popular through many regions of Spain. A popular story which often appeared in Easter pagaents was the visiting of Mary to Jesus’ grave after his resurrection and this was a story often performed in Miracle plays of this period.

Lope de Vega

One of the greatest playwright’s of this period and a contemporary of Shakespeare, was Lope de Vega, the most prolific playwright of all time. He wrote about 1500-1800 plays. His plays ranged in style from pastoral romances such as La Arcadia (1598) to fantastical fictionalized histories such as the story of Sir Francis Drake’s last expedition as told in La Dragontea (1598) to morality dramas such as Las Flores de Don Juan (1605) to his Honor Plays. However, during his day, Lope de Vega was most well known for his invention of the Three Act comedia. In 1609, Lope de Vega published his artistic manifesto Arte Nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo to validate his innovations and his break away from the traditional three unities of place, time and action. Lope de Vega boasted that many of his comedies only took 24 hours to write. Many of these comedies can be described as having capa y espada (cloak and dagger) plots. His most well known works today are El perro del hortelano (‘The Dog in the Manger’) and La viuda de Valencia (‘The Widow of Valencia’).

Baroque Zarzuela and the

Some styles or forms of comic drama started to emerge and come to prominence during this period and one of the most famous of these was the Zarzuela form. This is a form of lyric drama which is like musical theatre in that the dialogue and action alternates between spoken dialogue and dialogue which is sung. This form of drama during this period is sometimes referred to as Baroque Zarzuela to distinguish it from the Romantic Zarzuela’s developed in Spain during the 19^th century. The Zarzuela form had an influence and developed in many Spanish colonies including in the Philippines where it is known as sarsuela. One of the most significant playwrights of this form during this Golden Age was Calderon de la Barca. Other important figures were Gil Vicente, Lope de Rueda and Juan del Zorrilla who are said to have helped developed the Commedia Nueva form. Two of the last of the playwrights of this Golden Age were Tirso de Molina and Juan Rana.

Spain’s Golden Age of Theatre Practical Exercises and Discussion

Do a reading of the following extract from Lope de Vega’s The Demoniac. Discuss the style of the piece. How might non-naturalistic acting styles such as commedia dell’arte, musical theatre, melodrama and demonstrational acting help you to develop and perform this scene.

The Demoniac

Characters

SARMIENTO

INES, his Daughter

PEDRO, INES’S Lover 

GIL

PASCUAL

Scene 1

A Street.   ENTER GIL and PASCUAL.

Gil. No, master wiseacre, you had better not engage in a contest with me; you would be sure to get the worst of it.

Pas. Silence, fool! I contest with you? Your wits are far from great enough to tempt me to match mine against them. Everything you say is as complete folly as ever I heard in my life.

Gil. Folly, it seems to you? Listen to me. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I am a hunter, have my musket slung across my back, and come across country to an inn. Seven sparrows are sitting on the roof of the inn. I take aim and kill two. How many remain?

Pas. A question, forsooth, to puzzle wiser heads. If there were seven sparrows to begin with, and two are killed, five remain. Surely, that’s clear?

Gil. Now I’ll show you what an ass you are. If I kill two with my musket, the other five fly off. That’s clear as day!

Pas. To be sure!

Gil. Hence none remain.

Pas. I grant that I’m beaten.

Enter PEDRO.

Gil. Do you see that fellow coming up here? We had better go, for the devil walks abroad.

(Exeunt.)

Pedro. Thank Heaven they are gone. I can hardly step out into the street without meeting these enemies of my heart; for that they are. It is their master’s daughter who, fair as an angel, so fills my soul that I may neither eat nor sleep, but ever like a rocket ascend athwart the sky. It is her wish to speak to me at this hour. Hist! hist, lady!

Ines (at window). Who is there?

Pedro. Who could it be but I — I, whose soul is steeped in adoration of the divine beauty of your eyes!

Ines. Leave compliments aside, and never cross the street again. My father and my brothers have become aware of the way you haunt our house, and it has caused me great annoyance. Therefore, go! Good luck to you, but never return.

Pedro. Is this possible, sweet lady? Can you drive me away thus? I must return! Leave me not so forsaken in the world!

Further Readings and Resources on Spain’s Golden Age of Theatre

de Armas, F. 2004. Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age. Bucknell University Press. Lewisburg.

Frier, F.R. 1977. Lope de Vega. Insel Press. Frankfurt am Main.

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