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  • Diálogos en las tablas: Últimas tendencias de la puesta en escena del teatro clásico español ed. by María Bastianes et al.
  • Anna-Lisa Halling
Diálogos en las tablas: Últimas tendencias de la puesta en escena del teatro clásico español. Ed. María Bastianes, Esther Fernández, and Purificació Mascarell. Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 2014. 381 pp.

As Joan Oleza’s pointed prologue and self-proclaimed “manifiesto” (ix) indicates, theater practitioners and scholars have long operated apart from one another, a lamentable tendency that this volume attempts to remedy. By including both academic approaches to the performance of Spanish classical theater and interviews with theater scholars and professionals working in varying capacities, Diálogos en las tablas not only dialogues between theory and praxis, but also facilitates actual conversations about the history and current state of comedia performance. Oleza is justified in lauding this collection of essays and interviews as a unique and necessary addition to studies of Spanish classical theater and in lamenting the common tendency of critics to fall to one side or the other of the stage/page binary. He insists that the way forward is found in this compilation of discussions and scholarly works, which represents a holistic approach to theater studies that encompasses both the study of dramatic texts and their on-stage iterations.

The majority of Diálogos consists of nine chapters authored by different scholars. Each essay is followed by an interview with a director, actor, or dramaturg involved with the production or company featured. For example, Sergio Adillo Rufo’s chapter on adapting La vida es sueño immediately precedes his interview with Juan Mayorga, creator of the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico’s latest version of the play. These essays range widely in focus and scope, from case studies on adaptations of specific works, such as La vida es sueño and Fuente Ovejuna, to more historical explorations of the trajectory of a particular play, such as La Celestina and El galán fantasma, over a period of time. Other chapters focus on the work of certain theater troupes and directors, including Eduardo Vasco (Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico), Teatro Corsario, and Ana Zamora (Nao d’amores Teatro).

The second section is a series of forty short interviews, each consisting of just three questions, conducted with a wide variety of theater professionals and academics from Spain, England, and the United States. The interviewees, [End Page 232] ranging from Ignacio Arellano to Mar Zubieta, are professors, actors, directors, lighting designers, costume designers, set designers, translators, dramaturgs, musicologists, theater critics, and editors. These interviews are an excellent window to the work and working philosophies of those who have dedicated their professional labor to the drama of the Golden Age. It is not an exhaustive list of theater specialists and practitioners, but it is an important one.

It is worth noting that although most of the chapters deal with stagings by Spanish companies within Spain, Esther Fernández’s study of Fuente Ovejuna focuses on performances in New York and India, while the final chapter, by Jonathan Thacker, explores the history and reception of Golden Age plays staged in Great Britain. Although the reader will find references in the text to productions in Bogotá, Guayaquil, Washington, D.C., and El Paso, the text does lack more substantive information on international performances and might have benefitted from a study focused on these productions. For instance, the inclusion of works performed at the annual Siglo de Oro Drama Festival (Chamizal National Memorial, El Paso, Texas) or the Golden Age plays staged at GALA Hispanic Theatre (Washington, D.C.) would have provided a broader perspective of the performance tradition and staging trends of early modern Spanish dramas outside of Spain. Unfortunately, the omission of information about Golden Age plays staged elsewhere parallels Susan Fischer’s lamentation in her short interview about the use of the term “hispanista estadounidense,” which she views as a “calificación algo circunscrita” (297). By largely omitting productions and companies outside of Spain, the text inadvertently underestimates their significance and impact. There are a great number of non-European theater professionals and...

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