Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

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1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

Opening act: the origins of Spanish drama

Spanish drama evolved alongside music, with

wandering troubadours in town squares throwing

short sketches in among the lyricalcantares de gesta.

Amusing skits, often performed on the back of the

wagon the players rolled up in, became popular in the

15 thcentury, while churches and religious festivals

hostedautos sacramentales. Juan del Encina wrote

both, adapting the secular stuff into Spain’s first really

recognisable plays – short, funny and tension fuelled

affairs written for his boss, the Duke of Alba, during the

Renaissance.TheÉgloga de Plácida y Vitoriano(1513)

was his best effort, its story of magic and young love

a real advance on anything that had come before. With

its mystical old crone thrown in for plot development,

the play drew on the early classic of Spanish lit,La

Celestina(1499), a dialogue-based work that only

seems to really work as a novel (see section 2.1.2 for

more). After Juan del Encina came Lope de Rueda,

Spain’s first genuine jobbing playwright.The former

goldbeater effectively launched professional Spanish

theatre in the mid 16thcentury with a mix of ponderous

plays and spirited, funnypasosusually featuring a cast

of absurd peasant characters. Cervantes loved them

apparently. Lope de Rueda was also the main Spanish

actor of his day.

Comedias
Essentially ‘plays’.
They didn’t have to be
comedic; they could
even be gloomily tragic.

Autos sacramentales
Plays with a religious,
usually didactic base.
Sit up straight and
learn how to be a good
Catholic.

Comedias de intriga
Cross-dressing, deceit,
illicit trysts – you know
the kind of stuff: intrigue.

Pasos
Short, usually humorous
plays, reduced to one
side-splitting scene.

Loas
Most Golden Age
performances were
preceded by aloa,a
short prologue that might
relate to the main play,
the town it was in or
some unconnected
concern of the writer.

Entremeses
Amusing interludes often
performed between the
acts of longer plays.
Many put a satirical spin
on Spanish low-lifers.

Jácaras
Similar toentremeses
in content but sung,
ballad like.

Golden Age

theatre lingo

4.2.1 Golden greats: the age of Spanish drama

Juan del Encina, usually

labelled as Spain’s founding

dramatist, createdsayagués,

a coarse, humorous type of

peasant speak, much imitated

by subsequent playwrights.