Plays...
1. What was the difference between the autos sacramentales and the comedias?
The autos sacramentales were the Spanish religious dramas which combined elements of the medieval mystery and morality plays. Like the English Cycle plays, they were staged on movable wagons called carros which stopped at different stations along an established route. The Spanish continued to stage these religious dramas into the middle of the 18th century.The comedias were full length, three act, poetic, secular plays. Like Shakespeare, the Spanish writers ignored the three three unities, utilized large casts, and used the episodic structural pattern. Both religious and secular works were staged during the Spanish Golden Age (1550-1650).
2. Who were the two major playwrights of the Spanish Renaissance?
Lope de Vega (1562-1635) and Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681). Lope is reputed to have written 2000 scripts of which 470 have survived. Calderon generated 181 works: 111 comedias (secular plays) and 70 autos sacramentales (religious dramas).Although primarily remembered today as the author of Don Quixote de la Mancha (1602), Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was also one of Spain's early successful playwrights. He took credit for thirty comedias, but none had the vitality of his very famous novel.
Give the title of one work by each?
The Sheep Well (1614) and The King, The Greatest Alcalde (1620-1623) by Lope de Vega;
Life is a Dream (1636) by Calderon
3. What was a corrales?
They were the public open-air court yard theatre where the secular dramas were staged. The space was similar to an Elizabethan public playhouse. See the illustrations on pages 279 and 281 of Theatre: The Lively Art.
4. Were women members of a Spanish acting company ?
Yes. Unlike the English, women performed on both French and Spanish stages, but they were usually the wife or daughter of one of the male shareholders.
5. What was the Spanish influence on theatre in the New World?
Many believe that the first performance of a theatrical work in the New World was in April 1598, in a small Spanish colony near present day El Paso.Don Juan de Oñate (c.1549 - c.1624), the son of a noble Spanish family led one of the first major colonization efforts into what is now the United States. Four hundred men, 130 with families, left Santa Barbara (in north-central Mexico) for New Spain in January 1598. Four months later, after plodding across the torturous Chihuahua desert, they arrived at the banks of the Rio Grande near present day El Paso. On April 30, the Feast of the Ascension, Don Juan claimed the land for King Phillip of Spain, held a thanksgiving feast, and presented for the colonists a play, written by Captain Marcos de Fárfan, celebrating the conquest and conversion of the Indian population of New Mexico. Many believe that this was the first thanksgiving service and the first dramatic presentation in America.