“Restaging the Classroom: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Early Modern Hispanic Theater"

Restaging the Classroom: A Multidisciplinary Approachto Teaching Early Modern Hispanic Theater

Vincent Martin, Rosie Seagraves

Bulletin of the Comediantes, Volume 66, Number 2, 2014, pp. 211-227(Article)

Published by Bulletin of the ComediantesDOI: 10.1353/boc.2014.0021

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Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2014 Vol. 66 No. 2 211

Restaging the Classroom: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Early Modern Hispanic Theater

Vincent MartinSan Diego State University

Rosie SeagravesTougaloo College

eaching undergraduate and graduate courses on early modern theater in the United States presents a major obstacle, namely, the abysmal distance that separates instructors and students from the texts and contexts themselves. In the face of such geographic, historical, and cultural distance, instructors must rely instead on a script that cannot reproduce the essence of

the dramatic work at hand. University professors in the United States, in our quest to teach early modern Hispanic theater in a way that is meaningful to our students, stress time and again the importance of staging as a fundamental element in teaching the classics. For example, Dale Pratt and Valerie Hegstrom, who have regularly staged classic plays with their students at Brigham Young University, underscore this practical dimension: “We believe that the best way to teach theater is through performance” (198). This statement spotlights the inadequacy of a strictly text-based approach to teaching and studying plays. As we shall see, the logistics of reimagining the college classroom outside of a traditional logocentric framework create a stumbling block, one that has been labeled “the fifth wall” by Lynette Hunter and Peter Lichtenfels in their useful Shakespeare, Language and the Stage, The Fifth Wall: Approaches to Shakespeare from Criticism, Performance and Theatre Studies:

If the “fourth wall,” the barrier between the actor and the audience introduced by theatre conventions, is an invisible artefact between the stage and the audience, the fifth wall may be thought of as the invisible wall between critics or readers and theatre practitioners. (1)

212 Bulletin of the Comediantes • 2014 Vol. 66 No. 2

The present study seeks to tear down this “fifth wall” by proposing a break that is meaningful to twenty-first century university students in the United States.1 We discuss the pedagogical benefits of a five-week study abroad program in Madrid, Spain, sponsored by the University of Delaware between 2004 and 2010, that focused on a multidisciplinary understanding of Golden Age theater as text, performance, and cultural phenomenon. We approach the evaluation of this program from our perspectives as program director and former participant of the program, respectively.

In a prologue to a handful of autos sacramentales that he was hesitant to publish, Pedro Calderón de la Barca had already warned about the deficiency of a strictly textual reading of plays that had been created with other artistic objectives:

Parecerán tibios algunos trozos; respecto de que el papel no puede dar de sí ni lo sonoro de la música, ni lo aparatoso de las tramoyas, y si ya no es el que lea haga en su imaginación composición de lugares. (42)

The postmodern prevalence of the written word, however, tends to overshadow this spatial, multisensory element of theatrical texts. More recently, renowned theater director and performance theorist Richard Schechner explains how postmodernity focuses on the written logos, turning its back on the oral tradition of the world of theater: “[P]eople lost the sense of texts as skeins of rhythms and sounds, as the weaving together of contending emotions and ideas, as flexible and living spoken organisms” (131). Both Calderón and Schechner suggest the importance of an active, embodied interaction with a text, a practice that necessarily extends beyond this same text. While a text-based approach to theater is obviously the one most easily orchestrated in the college classroom, such a program underscores what Schechner describes as the “exegesis that derives from believing in the absolute force and authority of the written logos” (131). Performance offers an extratextual dimension that should not be dismissed in the teaching of theater in the university classroom. What is written as playscript is a starting point for the teaching of theater, but the specific form of a given theatrical work goes further than the page to encompass those elements accessible only in performance (sound effects, bodily movement, blocking, costuming, inflection, etc.).

A vision and understanding of a dramatic work within this logocentric scheme proves particularly incomplete in critical practice, omitting certain basic fixtures of the genre on stage, and thus hindering scholarly, and, consequently, pedagogical discourse. A more complete, organic study and teaching approach to Golden Age theater, such as that articulated by Matthew Stroud, addresses the need to recognize the fact “that one can draw careful correlations through a close reading of images in the poetry of a comedia is quite different from

____________________________________________ Vincent Martin & Rosie Seagraves


the perception of those images in a real-life performance in which the actual delivery of a complex poetic passage takes only a few seconds” (38). The close reading of the text must, of course, be the point of departure for spectators and theater professionals alike, but a text-based approach runs the risk of limiting the parameters of a dialogue with our students about the essence of dramatic art or the cultural implications of the comedia in particular. The visual and audible elements, although often invisible and inaudible on the printed page, and often silenced in our classrooms, shape every close reading of plays in general.2 The study of dramatic text as “full-blown” theater not only provides the additional and necessary elements omitted by the mere configuration of words on the page, but its practice, within the classroom, allows for the experiential component so necessary to the study of literature, particularly in the area of drama.

Practicing performance in the classroom helps to mobilize the student as an active agent in his own learning process. Rather than listen to a lecture (which posits the professor as the authoritative center of the classroom), students find themselves in charge of their own reception of the dramatic text when asked to perform from it. The actor/spectator dynamic, in this sense, transforms that of teacher/student. Hans-Georg Gadamer, in his monumental Truth and Method, underscores this interactive, community-based exchange between actor and spectator during a representation: “To be present means to participate. [...] watching something is a genuine mode of participating” (124). Beyond the “mere” role of spectator, the student must become the “executor” of these seemingly distant texts, and thus experience them in a unique and personal way. Donald Dietz advocates for this methodological base, suggesting that a student’s experience with the text should connect with that of the author’s in order for the student of Spanish comedia to tap into the freedom of the original creative process. This repositions the instructor in a more ancillary role, helping to make possible this experiential learning process.3 Dietz notes that the instructor “becomes a facilitator whose task in the classroom is to help the students affectively experience, in their own lives, what they are only reading about in the work of fiction” (15). When assuming the role of adaptor, actor, and technical crew, among others, the student finds herself deeply immersed in the creative and collaborative process of the play, and much closer to the social context of the original piece. Dietz concludes with a quote by Edward J. Schoben: “It seems probable that, although such disciplines as literary history and linguistics can be taught, literature can only be participated in” (24). This was precisely the observation made by an undergraduate student in her feedback essay from the 2004 program in Spain: “I think that in order to learn about theater, it is equally important to participate in theater, and having the chance to do that is something that I will never forget.”

Various professors of Golden Age literature in the United States have undertaken the complicated task of staging plays, or fragments, as part of their

Vincent Martin & Rosie Seagraves ____________________________________________


pedagogy. A crucial addition to such student-centered theatrical efforts in the future will be contributions from experts in the area: directors, production crew members, and actors with professional training. Although instructors of Spanish literature can, and should, become directors in their classrooms, when students work with an artistic director, they receive professional training that a literature professor cannot provide. In the rehearsals, the director, in addition to correcting the students’ linguistic errors, integrates diverse activities of a ludic nature that lead to reaffirming self-confidence. Such activities are not pertinent in a L1 literature class, but they certainly illustrate the quintessence of the L2 classroom. Disciplines join together as students of Spanish language and literature make strides toward fluency at the same time that they experience, live and in action, the theatrical side of the dramatic text. The director’s feedback often transcends oral or written communication, manifesting itself in a mere gesture, a simple movement, or a slight utterance (Figure 1).

In the current age of cultural studies, multidisciplinary approaches, and an increasing orientation toward the visual, this type of pedagogical consideration constitutes the road to greatest success for the student of early modern Hispanic theater, although the logistics constitute an obvious obstacle (i.e., locating theater professionals, attending staged productions, securing costumes, etc.). At the University of Delaware, the creation of a program that centered on the annual International Classical Theater Festival of Almagro served as an antidote to this problem. Our group, which often included students from other universities as well, spent five weeks in Madrid, studying and rehearsing in Karpas Teatro, an intimate space in the Antón Martín neighborhood. This is an intimate, Italian-style theater with 60 seats and a 25-square-meter stage. The program director taught a course on the theory and practice of Golden Age theater, and stage director Luis Dorrego conducted a workshop that culminated with the staging of a seventeenth-century interlude. With the help of Dorrego’s experienced direction, these students transformed themselves into true actors for a Spanish audience that attended the one-

Fig. 1. Luis Dorrego guides students during rehearsal at Karpas Teatro in 2006.



night performance each year. The theoretical and practical course was designed in accordance with the Festival program for the season in question, thus offering the students the extraordinary opportunity to attend the performances of the plays that they had studied formally in class. In Almagro and Madrid, students also had the unique privilege of attending lectures and workshops, as well as round-table discussions, that the program director arranged in advance with actors, directors, production crews, and others, all of whom contributed information and experiences from diverse angles. The program ran from 2004 to 2010, gradually gaining visibility in Spain, and in its final year earned the “Premios Clásicos” award from Radio Surco and TV La Mancha for its dedication to the Almagro Festival as an educational vehicle for American students of Spanish (Figure 2).

Luis Dorrego’s presence highlighted an important theme in the methodology of this program—the need for theater professionals. Trained professionals help students understand a component of dramatic art separate from the text—the use of their bodies on stage and in interaction with each other. In the American college classroom, this may present some logistical difficulty, depending on the proximity of professional theater companies and/or the availability of professional acting coaches and directors. Lois Potter, in “Teaching Shakespeare: The Participatory Approach,” suggests one possible solution, noting that “Many American universities have, as British ones usually do not, a resident professional theater training program,” (236) such as members of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. Potter also suggests visits from traveling companies such as the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express and ACTER (A Center for Theatre, Education, and Research) (238). In addition to using such companies or theater departments for the purposes of performance, they may further be able to offer basics on acting and stage presence, thus fully

integrating students into the realm of theater. Cynthia Lewis, for example, calls upon a member of the theater department to cover

Fig. 2. Dorrego and students at the Corral de Comedias in Almagro, 2006.



the basics of acting, such as “posture, projection, [and] facial control” for her course “Performing Shakespeare” at Davidson College (299). Both scholars also mention their own efforts to acclimate students to acting, another possibility if theater professionals are not available, or if they are not a permanent fixture in the classroom. As Potter explains, this may prove daunting or difficult for one not accustomed to theater, as “the diffident, permissive teaching style that sometimes works well for group discussion does not quite enable theater to happen” (238). Lewis too engages her students in the classroom to begin exploring the text theatrically: “I also conduct my own beginners’ acting workshop on a short passage from our play [….] the actors begin to explore the language for its rhythms, unexpected pronunciations, embedded stage directions, and, above all, multiplicity of interpretations” (299). As the instructor bridges the gap between teacher and director in the classroom, she opens up a space for students to begin exploring performance aspects of the dramatic text at hand. When possible, the added aid of theater professionals serves to forge disciplines and encourage students to build theatrical and literary critical tools.

Dorrego has proven to be an indispensable and ideal resource in this component of the program. Though the end product of his course for the study abroad program was the adapted performance of a Spanish entremés, much of his workshop focused on acting exercises and theatrical games, or, as one student participant described: “We started out the session with warm-up exercises to familiarize everyone with each other and the space we were using.” These activities established basic principles of the stage and broke down inhibitions and timidity, which would have impaired an immediate attempt to rehearse a scene or full-length production. For example, during the first class meeting in the summer of 2006, students formed pairs, taking on the roles of the “blind” and the “guide.” The guide then led the “blind” person (who closed his or her eyes) around the room, exercising the Spanish imperative verb form while also establishing trust with his or her partner. These commands allowed the pair to weave through physical barriers and twenty other wandering students. Such exercises and activities, as outlined in detail in Dorrego’s book Propuestas para dinamizar la clase de E/LE, familiarize and make students more comfortable with themselves as actors as well as allow them to practice different grammatical structures and vocabulary in Spanish. Perhaps most importantly, they teach students to begin connecting emotion with physical expression. As Stroud observes: “An actor must commit mind, feelings, and will to a role, and we can expect at least an attempt at such involvement from literature students [….] we can in turn call on our students to think of emotions analogous to those of a character in a comedia” (33-34). Student response reflected this methodology, as evidenced by the feedback from a student in that 2006 program: “The purpose of this course was to extract students’ feelings and emotions about who they were, and the character they



were playing, and to redirect them, in a sense, to focus on a new and different culture context (a Spanish one).”

While the nature of the Madrid program afforded students numerous performance resources, the American classroom does not necessarily allow for this same type of direct interaction and experience. Beyond the performance integrations by Potter and Lewis, some professors turn to film adaptations and/or videos of performances as a way of including performance and enhancing the study of the dramatic text. Film can function as a valuable tool in familiarizing students with theater of the early modern period, and, as Carmen García de la Rasilla points out, “Film effects an invaluable historical and cultural transference between the past and the present” (69). Its modern accessibility engages students and makes them comfortable in analyzing the work as a performance piece. Film further serves as a cultural parallel in understanding the significance of early modern drama in Spanish culture. García de la Rasilla notes that “young people do discuss movies, which seem to them more vibrant and realistic” (69). The modern vibrancy and popularity of film can function for students as analogous to the popularity and cultural significance of Spanish drama in the seventeenth century. Through the modern-day parallel of film, students get a sense of the cultural significance of the commercial theater in early modern Spain. Furthermore, film may enhance and adapt texts in unique ways, adding “cinematic impact by varying the scenery and background, compressing the dialogue, introducing dance, music, and even new scenes, and employing colors to symbolic effect” (70). A follow-up discussion of those changes then prompts a comparison of the different facets of various representational mediums while fostering an examination of the purpose and relative merits of those omitted or adapted elements in the original.

At the pedagogical level, James F. Gaines highlights how the use of film allows the instructor to pick and choose segments that can be played back so as to not overwhelm students with a beginner or intermediate knowledge of the foreign language, further encouraging more extensive analysis of the work in performance by reviewing the scene repeatedly (146). This underscores the principal difference between theatrical performances and filmed versions as they may be used in the classroom, since theatrical performances can be viewed only once, or, as Gaines puts it, “live performances are generally one-time-only affairs” (148). For this reason, Gaines further argues for the use of video as the ideal, given that students can gain prolonged access to the various elements of performance and hence a greater appreciation for the acting (148). In this case, the use of film makes possible a more detailed study of performance. Just as students learn to dissect a written text in the literary classroom, performance-based resources such as taped stagings and film adaptations help students of theater to analyze more closely the machinations of performance.



Although the use of film adaptations or recorded versions of theatrical performances may bring their own unique assets to a dramatic text and further facilitate the consideration of performance in the face of limited resources, it does not ultimately serve as the ideal medium because, simply, it is not the intended medium. As Eric Bentley explains in What is Theatre, “In the movie theater, we can watch a story and we can admire many things that actors do, but we cannot be caught up in a flow of living feeling that passes from actor to audience and from the audience back again to the actor” (288). The vitality of the theater, the connection between the life onstage and the life of the audience, and, as Bentley puts it, “the place, the actor, and the psychology of we” create the unique environment of the theater, which cannot be replaced or altered by an alternative medium (288).

The study abroad program in Spain attempted to incorporate these various approaches and methodologies. The first program took place in 2004, and our group saw the following plays in Almagro: Divertimento o La comedia de los criados (Dei Furbi) in the Corral de Comedias, Tirso de Molina’s La celosa de sí misma (Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico) in the Hospital de San Juan, Miguel de Cervantes’s El retablo de las maravillas (Els Juglars) in the Claustro de los Dominicos, Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El astrólogo fingido (Compañía Amara) in the Patio de los Fúcares, and Lope de Vega’s El caballero de Olmedo (CNTC) in the Hospital de San Juan. Luciano García Lorenzo, then Director of the Almagro Festival, spoke to the group about the history and sociopolitical importance of the Festival. He was uniquely suited for this task since he has been bringing together the worlds of theater and academia for many years. Renowned actor Gabriel Garbisu, who directed El astrólogo fingido, gave a talk to the students after they had read the play and attended his staging. Students made the most of a very dynamic session of questions and answers with him, which led to a further understanding of the play as a whole. Actress Lidia Navarro offered us a movement workshop, and her brother Víctor Navarro, technical engineer for the CNTC, showed the group several technical designs and wardrobe sketches that he had prepared.

This sartorial element proved essential to students’ experience at the festival. Costume in itself constitutes an important aspect to the comedia. Laura Bass argues that costume offers a constitutive “visual index of dramatic space, time, and character” (61). This index proves equally crucial to the modern day spectator, particularly when said spectator is also a student of Golden Age theater (61). However, as Bass further points out, this theatrical element “works on the register of the visual,” and hence cannot exist for students in a simple reading of the work (62). The Almagro Festival, then, provided students the full visual spectrum of performance—including costume—while conversations with directors and actors allowed students



to question style and choice of wardrobe. One student commented on this aspect of the program after viewing the CNTC’s 2006 production of Don Gil de las calzas verdes: “The colorful dress used in Don Gil de las calzas verdes seemed overly whimsical and child-like for the play. We later had the opportunity to ask Eduardo Vasco, the director of the play, about his choice of costumes, and he explained that the colors fit the personalities of the characters.” In this sense, students experienced costuming firsthand by viewing the productions, but further challenged their interpretations and impressions against the visions and intentions of the artistic director in order to understand critically the function of costuming in the staging of the work.

In 2004, our students (all female) staged Cervantes’s El retablo de las maravillas, a play that they had rehearsed all month in Madrid as part of Dorrego’s theater workshop. We also saw a magnificent production of this same play by Els Joglars, who staged their caustic critique of Church and State in the Claustro de los Dominicos in Almagro. Moreover, our group enjoyed an excellent flamenco production of this same interlude by Teatro del Duende, in Madrid’s Jardines de Sabatini with the Royal Palace, which, lit up at night, served as a spectacular background. When the time came for the students to adapt Cervantes’s text for their own production, the young women of the program came upon the ingenious idea of situating the play within a convent of nuns. The hoaxsters Chanfalla and Chirinos explain to “las Hermanas de la Paz” that only virgins will be able to witness the show that they are going to stage. The team of impostors even staged the appearance of Spanish singer and teen heartthrob David Bisbal, much to the satisfaction of the nuns’ ardent desire (although he was of course invisible and inaudible). In fact, one of the nuns, who was pregnant, fainted as she shouted out her inability to resist. In addition to the creation of a fun, spirited atmosphere of the new version of the play, the creative and collaborative acts of adaptation and production stimulated the students’ self-confidence in Spanish, and led them to make significant discoveries and self-discoveries that transcended the field of language and literature, as we shall discuss in more depth.

The second program took place in 2006, and the students attended the following plays in Almagro: Tirso de Molina’s Desde Toledo a Madrid (Rakatá) in the Corral de Comedias, Tirso’s Don Gil de las calzas verdes (CNTC) in the Hospital de San Juan, Gil Vicente’s Tragicomedia de Don Duardos (CNTC) in the Claustro de los Dominicos, Calderón’s El mágico prodigioso (Compañía Mágico Prodigioso) in the Teatro Municipal, and Calderón’s Amar después de la muerte (CNTC) in the Hospital de San Juan. As in the first program, Luciano García Lorenzo offered his acute perspective on the history of the Almagro Festival. Elia Muñoz, who played the role of Doña Ana in Desde Toledo a Madrid,



gave a one-day movement workshop with our students. Eduardo Vasco, Director of the CNTC, shared his artistic vision of Don Gil de las calzas verdes in a Q&A session with our students in Almagro’s spectacular Cloister of the National Theater Museum. Award-winning director Ana Zamora similarly discussed her creative approach to Don Duardos in another Q&A session with our group. The CNTC’s Víctor Navarro shared and explained several technical drawings and wardrobe sketches that he had done for Don Duardos and Amar después de la muerte. Finally, our group had the great fortune to spend an hour backstage at the Hospital de San Juan, the CNTC’s venue in Almagro, with Raúl Sánchez, the company’s Technical Director. The students were able to move the stage machinery, walk around the large stage and up on the catwalks, as well as see and touch the wardrobe for the play that we were going to see that night, Amar después de la muerte. When we returned to the theater in the evening, now with a packed audience, the students appreciated the multifaceted dimensions of theater that they could not have perceived without the experiences of that morning, something that one student from the program commented on: “What was most special for me this weekend was our backstage tour of the Hospital de San Juan, where Amar depués de la muerte was performed. […] I loved this because that night when we saw the play I could recognize the wardrobe and I saw the curtain, and I knew that I had pulled it earlier that day! […] It also boosted my confidence in Spanish to understand and recognize the lines I had read earlier in the week” (Figures 3 and 4).

The viewing of staged comedias at the Almagro festival also offers the unique opportunity to experience spoken poetry of the seventeenth century. The versification of the comedia, one of its unique fixtures, may not become fully apparent to students as they read and discuss these dramatic works from the early


Fig. 3. Students experiment with set pieces at the Hospital de San Juan in 2006.


modern period. As Mary Gaylord points out, given the difficulty among “even seasoned scholars of Renaissance and baroque poetry less accustomed to hearing verse recited than to reading it in silence …, [i]t is hardly surprising that our students have little sense of the varied poetic traditions that flow into the comedia” (77). Spoken text is one of the distinguishing elements of the transformation between reading and experiencing texts meant to be performed. Catherine Larson argues for the consideration of speech as a fundamental element of representation: “[B]y underscoring the ways that speakers use language in order to act, readers are able to observe how dramatic dialogue functions with the physical action to produce a representable text” (43). Overall, students responded positively to the experience of hearing the text they had read. One student mentioned the way in which attendance at the Almagro performances facilitated an enhanced perception of versification: “In La vida es sueño and Amar después de la muerte, there are many long speeches, and, attending the performances, I felt as though I had a greater capacity to understand the language as well as a further appreciation for the different poetic forms and meters used for different functions throughout each work.”

The interlude that the students adapted and staged in 2006 was Calderón’s La casa de los linajes, under the new title Hostal Puertas Abiertas. The original piece deals with the hilarious arrival of a host of figures who are marginalized and disdained from society’s dominant perspective—a tailor, a dueña, a hunchback, a Black African, et al.—and the hilarious collective conquest of the prejudices held by the pure, authentic (and cuckolded) Spaniard. The “appearance” technique was typical in interludes and merely consists of a certain person or group entering when another character mentions them. In Calderón’s play, the bigoted

p r o t a g o n i s t , Don Tristán, explains the name of the “casa de los linajes” thus:


Fig. 4. Students tour the Hospital de San Juan in 2006.


Sé que vive en la casaque de esta calle a esotra calle pasa,cuyo corral es todo aposentillosllenos de vecinillos;por cuyas varias gentes,de oficios y de estados diferentes,tratos, usos, naciones y lenguajes,la Casa se llamó de los Linajes. (281-82)

Part of the irony here is that the phrase “casa de los linajes” signified, in the medieval tradition, a noble house associated with a particular lineage of nobility. Tristán is taking the term completely out of context to impose his racism and prejudices onto the people in this building whose lineages differ from his own. The multicultural dimension of this piece was of special interest when selecting an interlude relevant to twenty-first century U.S. students studying in Spain. When it came time to adapt the play, the first task was for students to observe the people living in Madrid’s city center, where we were working, and to identify the various groups and types of people on the streets of that neighborhood, as well as the preconceptions and stereotypes that came up surrounding each group. With this information, a select group of students from the class decided to situate the play in a hostel and to follow the idea of the appearances, but rewriting the entire script. The new objects of Don Tristán’s derision included a gypsy woman, some drunkards, a prostitute with her client, two geeky Golden Age literature professors, a Chinese convenience store owner, two Moroccan women, two Ecuadorian women, two American tourists with horrendous Spanish accents, and some young Spaniards who hand out promotional vouchers on the street for free shots in the bars. Just as in the original version, the scorned wind up ridiculing the “Old Christian” protagonist and his prejudices. In this version, these scorned, marginalized characters also beat the cuckolded Tristán, an action not explicit in Calderón’s text, but in full accordance with the art of the interludes of his day. The students themselves captured the relevance of Calderón’s play in the Madrid of 2006, and they are the ones who adapted this piece, which advocates for the rights and dignity of minorities and other persons marginalized by society. In November of that same year, they reunited and presented an encore performance of their play, this time for the local community on the University of Delaware campus. Luis Dorrego was invited from Spain to direct, and the one-night performance drew over 230 members from the local community. Earlier that day, Dorrego offered a theater workshop in Spanish for students and faculty interested in learning techniques that were relevant to both teaching performance and performing Golden Age drama.

The third program took place in the summer of 2008, and the students attended the following plays in Almagro: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Los empeños



de una casa (INBA Mexico) in the Corral de Comedias, Calderón’s Las manos blancas no ofenden (CNTC) in the Hospital de San Juan, Calderón’s La paz universal o El lirio y la azucena (Antiqua Escena) in the Teatro Municipal, Lope’s La noche de San Juan (CNTC Equipo Joven) on the Patio de Fúcares, Guillén de Castro’s (CNTC) El curioso impertinente in the Hospital de San Juan, and Lope’s El perro del hortelano (Rakatá) in the Corral de Comedias. As always, the program director organized a series of talks and workshops with professionals in the field, including the participation of two Mexican actresses from Los empeños de una casa, Aleyda Gallardo and Abril Mayett, who offered our group a movement and voice workshop.

As part of the theater workshop that summer, students updated and staged the interlude El retablo de las maravillas, this time opting for an adaptation with a clearly political and humanistic focus. On this occasion, the stage constructor of the magical puppet show was the famous “Nixonete,” and in order to see and hear the puppet show, one had to live a life free of false appearances and corruption. The spectators of the play within the play, that is, the audience of the nonexistent puppet show, were all corrupt politicians and immoral citizens. After several nonexistent appearances, Bono, the singer for U2, appears, but it is the real Bono, and not one fabricated by the puppet show masters. The corrupt politicians, all great Bono fans, are let down when they discover that Bono, the most aboveboard global citizen on the planet, cannot see the marvels of the puppet show. In a year as politically charged as was 2008, the students, with some academic-artistic encouragement, and with complete freedom to create a new play, immediately saw the current relevance of Cervantes’s farce, and they collaborated to stage a very witty play of their own making.

The firm conviction that teaching and learning are creative and collaborative acts guides the collective, participatory elements of the program and threads together the cohesion of its various activities. The synthesis of the three elements of this program—the literature course, in which students read and discuss the plays that they are going to see in Almagro, the Almagro Festival itself, and the workshop with an artistic director—form an experience in accord with the aforementioned merits of “teaching theater through performance.” Moreover, the students’ exposure to certain theatrical techniques during the month had an influence, consciously or not, on their own production. Examples include the slow-motion dream sequence in the comedy 666 by Spanish troupe Yllana in Madrid or the radical breaking of the fourth wall in Ana Zamora’s version of Don Duardos in Almagro. When students saw the staging of other plays that had little to do with the original text—for example, La vida es sueño, a one-man-show performed by Antonio Díaz-Florián, in Madrid, or a highly sensual interpretation of El mágico prodigioso, Calderón’s comedia de santos, in Almagro—they became aware of the possibilities that dramatic art offers,



and this was precisely one of the goals of the program. But on a much larger scale, the synthesis of the three elements of this program offered the students the possibility to speak about their own world through the classics of Spain’s Golden Age, and, more importantly, it invited them to do some deep self-reflection, full of surprising discoveries and changes of perspective as related to theater, culture, language, and themselves.

As students experienced theater in a new language, they began to experience themselves as well. In his outline of his aforementioned alternative methodology to teaching Spanish Golden Age theater, Dietz suggests a type of creative project as the final step (of five) toward fully incorporating both a scientific and humanistic approach: “reproduction of the author’s theme and artistry in the student’s creative expression” (18). In the context of the Madrid project, the adaptation and production of La casa de los linajes served as such a creative expression. Preparation for this staging integrated the “scientific” approach, in that students were obliged to consider historically relevant staging methods, costuming, and thematic motivation, in addition to employing their personal interpretations, understandings, and appreciations of the selected theme in performance. For example, in adapting the work, students had to learn about the different stereotypes used by Calderón, such as those attributed to the sastre or the zurdo, to understand how to modernize the characters and insert new stereotypical figures, such as American tourists or Ecuadorian immigrants. This also functions in a humanistic vein because students must extract the underlying theme of the historical stereotypes and internalize it in order to reproduce this theme in new, modern characters. Performing the work as a “creative project” most wholly completed the process because the students not only internalized and contextualized the theme, but also reproduced it both as individuals and as the characters to which they had been trying to relate the theme and their own experiences. Indeed, student response reflected a high level of personal growth and enrichment as a result of this program, as exemplified by one undergraduate, whose transformation into a Chinese shop owner in Madrid was truly amazing: “Little did I know that this program would have such an immense impact on my academic life, as well as my social and emotional life. [...] I made a huge decision because of these occurrences: Spanish would now be my second major. Not only does this program allow you to expand your mind intellectually, but it also helps you to find yourself.” This student’s comments reflect the more universal pedagogical value underlying a performance-based approach to dramatic texts in the classroom, particularly in the context of second-language acquisition. Participation in the program enhanced not only the students’ understanding of early modern theater, but also their own connection to the Spanish-speaking world as a component of self-concept.

In order to learn and understand a new language, one must develop a new way of expressing, a new way of knowing—learning a new language essentially



encompasses the task of creating a new self. This self develops from the same core of thoughts and emotions but manifests in a new mode of communication and understanding, which better fits a new cultural context. Much in the same way, theater also involves the creation of a new self in its transformations from actor to character and text to production. The ability to compare an analyzed text with its staged production, as well as the creation of a modern theatrical production in Spanish, mimics the process of comprehending the language itself while also helping to define the context in which this language fits. Therefore, a hand-in-hand study of Golden Age theater, the Almagro Festival, and modern Spanish stage production (in short, the multidisciplinary approach) positions the English-speaking student to think about the construction of identity, as well as their own ideas about themselves.

The literature course and the Almagro Festival helped students through this process of transformation by elucidating the new Spanish context through the filter of theater. Students primarily responded to the overall pedagogical effect of the Madrid summer program by describing the way in which the course and the Almagro Festival combined to serve as a “translation” in two senses, culturally and literally. The literature course initiated this process by first prompting students to imagine their own theatrical context in which to place the text after reading each work. Textual analysis of a play began with a basic understanding of plot, character scheme, and theme as well as an imagined context of staging, costume, character portrayal, and interpretation as discussed in small groups. One student characterized this process as follows: “We became critics in the classroom, feeding off each other’s ideas, sharing what we thought would be the best way to stage a scene of a classical piece of art before a modern audience.” The Almagro Festival then added a visual, culturally contextualized element for students, in that they could compare their theatrical expectations as English-speaking Americans with the Spanish production. Other students commented on the unique experience of viewing Desde Toledo a Madrid in the Corral de Comedias, which provided them with a greater sense of the original theatrical setting. The Almagro Festival, as well as backstage tours, also served as a kind of live translation, in that the animate aspects of the staged productions enhanced certain elements lost in an initial reading due to the language barrier—a 400-year-old language barrier. For example, longer soliloquies became easier to understand for students when they heard and watched them performed by native speakers. Also, in places where the language was too complex for students, other aspects of theater visually conveyed the overall sense of the scene. For example, a student commented on how Ana Zamora’s staging of Don Duardos clarified what she could not understand in the text: “To be honest, I really didn’t understand much about this play. I had a really difficult time reading it. However, it was amazing when I saw it. I was amazed with the lighting, props, costumes, and especially music.



The director was so creative with her vision that the words barely mattered to me during the two hour performance.” What the stage performance could not provide for students in the transition from text to theater was supplemented by discussions with various professional actors, directors, and artistic technicians. In their feedback on the program, students described the way in which Victor Navarro provided a new technical view of theatrical works and how Eduardo Vasco clarified motivations for costume, casting, and musical selections in his productions.

While the literature course and the Almagro Festival focused on the study of the transformation of text to production, the theater course integrated each student as a part of this transformation in order to complete the experience. The students stepped out of their comfort zones as they stepped onto the stage in order to adapt and perform the entremeses, which required a direct understanding of the modern Spanish context in which they were already learning to develop language skills and an understanding of classical theater as staged in the twenty-first century.

The combination of literary analysis, the Almagro Festival, and theater production allowed students to learn and think in different ways while still building toward a unified goal: to break the “fifth wall” each student and critic faces when approaching the study of theater. Each element of the program gave students the opportunity to learn visually, kinesthetically, and aurally. Finally, some students emphasized the way in which this program facilitated great personal growth and provided an academic outlook and overall direction for their further studies. Learning about theater as a reader, audience member, producer, and actor provided a full perspective of its many transformations toward a new “self.” The students, as participants in all these different roles, then also gained access to developing new modes for expression both on stage and in a new language. Through this study of Golden Age theater in conjunction with the Almagro Festival, students were able to develop a strong understanding of theatrical and cultural context and, most importantly, a new and more fitting sense of self. In the words of one participant: “Through our performance, we had to create new versions of ourselves not only to fit our characters but also the language and context in which these characters fit.” Professionally, there is nothing more gratifying than to see these changes in students and, from time to time, to see that the students themselves also discover the intimate relationship between the acquisition of a new language and the playing out of a dramatic role.

Notes1. The student participants discussed in this article were primarily native speakers of English studying

Spanish as a second language. Native speakers of Spanish also completed the program, and this paper speaks to the benefits for both types of student as related to the study of early modern Hispanic theater. All student comments have been submitted unedited and with no names included.



2. Stroud touches upon some of the necessary elements to be held up for consideration. He mentions, for example, “the kind of stage, the ground plan, the scenery, the props and how they are handled, lighting, makeup, acting styles, gesture, tension between characters, acting areas, the positions of individual actors alone and in groups, the spoken words, their delivery, phrasing, dialects, and relationship to the subtext […] clusters of space and time as well as imagery” (36-38).

3. And, as Dietz further argues, this approach may even inch the student closer to the playwright’s authorial experience as well: “The student must be encouraged and freed to experience what the author experienced in creating his work” (18).

4. Foreign language pedagogy confirms the essential link between second language acquisition and self-concept, noting that the student’s self-esteem develops along with their understanding of the new language (Rubio 20).

Works CitedBass, Laura. “Costume and the Comedia: Dressing Up El vergonzoso en palacio in the Classroom.”

Approaches to Teaching Early Modern Spanish Drama. Ed. Laura R. Bass and Margaret R. Greer. New York: MLA, 2006. 61-68.

Bentley, Eric. What Is Theatre? Incorporating the Dramatic Event and Other Reviews, 1944-1967. New York: Atheneum, 1968.

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Entremeses, jácaras y mojigangas. Ed. Evangelina Rodríguez y Antonio Tordera. Clásicos Castalia 116. Madrid: Castalia, 1982.

. Obras completas. Vol. 3. Autos sacramentales. Ed. Ángel Valbuena Prat. 2ª ed. Madrid: Aguilar, 1967.

Dietz, Donald. “An Alternative Approach to the Teaching of the Comedia.” Approaches to Teaching Spanish Golden Age Drama. Ed. Everett W. Hesse. York, SC: Spanish Literature Publications, 1989. 13-26.

Dorrego, Luis, Maria del Hoyo, and Milagros Ortega. Propuestas para dinamizar la clase de E/LE. Madrid: Edelsa, 2010.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. 2nd ed. New York: Continuum, 2004.

Gaines, James F. “From Classroom to Stage and Back: Using Molière in Performance.” Approaches to Teaching Molière’s Tartuffe and Other Plays. New York: MLA, 1995. 145-51.

García de la Rasilla, Carmen. “Teaching Golden Age Theater through Filmic Adaptations.” Approaches to Teaching Early Modern Spanish Drama. Ed. Laura R. Bass and Margaret R. Greer. New York: MLA, 2006. 69-75.

Gaylord, Mary Malcolm. “How to Do Things with Polimetría.” Approaches to Teaching Early Modern Spanish Drama. Ed. Laura R. Bass and Margaret R. Greer. New York: MLA, 2006. 76-84.

Hunter, Lynette, and Peter Lichtenfels, eds. Shakespeare, Language and the Stage: The Fifth Wall, Approaches to Shakespeare from Criticism, Performance and Theatre Studies. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2005.

Lewis, Cynthia. “Performing Shakespeare: The Outward Bound of the English Department.” Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. New York: MLA, 1999. 295-306.

Potter, Lois. “Teaching Shakespeare: The Participatory Approach.” Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. Ed. Milla Cozart Riggio. New York: MLA, 1999. 235-43.

Pratt, Dale J., and Valerie Hegstrom. “Mentoring Environments and Golden Age Theater Production.” Approaches to Teaching Early Modern Spanish Drama. Ed. Laura R. Bass and Margaret R. Greer. New York: MLA, 2006. 198-205.

Rubio, Fernando. Self-esteem and Foreign Language Learning. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2007.

Schechner, Richard. “Re-Wrighting Performance: A Conversation with Richard Schechner.” Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. Ed. Milla Cozart Riggio. New York: MLA, 1999. 127-41.

Stroud, Matthew. “The Comedia as Playscript.” Approaches to Teaching Spanish Golden Age Drama. Ed. Everett W. Hesse. York, SC: Spanish Literature Publications, 1989. 27-39.


“Restaging the Classroom: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Teaching Early Modern Hispanic Theater"

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