Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Note to the Reader
- Acknowledgements
- PART I THEORIZING
- PART II SURVEYING
- PART III SPOTLIGHTING
- 11 The Dog in the Manger: The Continuum of Transformation
- 12 El caballero de Olmedo: Los Barracos's Baroque Gentleman
- 13 Corpus Lorqui: Transformation and Transubstantiation in Los Barracos de Federico’s El caballero de Olmedo
- 14 The Phoenix of Madrid: Calderón's No hay burlas con el amor Reborn in Bath
- 15 A Prince in Pittsburgh: “Recasting” a Contemporary Staging of The Constant Prince
- 16 Directing Marta the Divine: Provocative Choices in the Service of the Story
- 17 The Dramaturgy of Absence: Minding the Gaps in Tirso de Molina, Ana Caro, and Feliciana Enríquez
- 18 Translations and Transgressions: Twenty-First-Century Questions Regarding Zayas
- 19 Comedia Actresses, Then and Now: The Case of Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer
- 20 “Kinesthetic Empathy” and the Comedia refundición
- PART IV SHIFTING
- Play Titles Cited
- Works Cited
- Index
14 - The Phoenix of Madrid: Calderón's No hay burlas con el amor Reborn in Bath
from PART III - SPOTLIGHTING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Contributors
- Preface
- Note to the Reader
- Acknowledgements
- PART I THEORIZING
- PART II SURVEYING
- PART III SPOTLIGHTING
- 11 The Dog in the Manger: The Continuum of Transformation
- 12 El caballero de Olmedo: Los Barracos's Baroque Gentleman
- 13 Corpus Lorqui: Transformation and Transubstantiation in Los Barracos de Federico’s El caballero de Olmedo
- 14 The Phoenix of Madrid: Calderón's No hay burlas con el amor Reborn in Bath
- 15 A Prince in Pittsburgh: “Recasting” a Contemporary Staging of The Constant Prince
- 16 Directing Marta the Divine: Provocative Choices in the Service of the Story
- 17 The Dramaturgy of Absence: Minding the Gaps in Tirso de Molina, Ana Caro, and Feliciana Enríquez
- 18 Translations and Transgressions: Twenty-First-Century Questions Regarding Zayas
- 19 Comedia Actresses, Then and Now: The Case of Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer
- 20 “Kinesthetic Empathy” and the Comedia refundición
- PART IV SHIFTING
- Play Titles Cited
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Though the Royal Shakespeare Company set a deliciously high standard for producing comedias on the British stage with their 2004–05 Spanish Golden Age season, since that time only a handful of major companies have risen to the challenge. Laurence Boswell, the artistic director for that RSC season, has carried on his project to remake the Comedia for British audiences, this time in his new role as the artistic director for the ustinov Studio in Bath. The first Golden Age play he translated and directed in Bath was Calderón's No hay burlas con el amor, reborn as The Phoenix of madrid. Form and content interact dynamically in the Comedia, and in this study I investigate Boswell's formal translation choices in terms of verse forms, rhyme, and structure, and examine the decisions he made in terms of the relationships between masters and servants, and of course his rendering of the verbally dexterous Beatriz. Boswell articulates his aim in bringing Golden Age plays to the English stage thus:
My approach to doing Spanish Golden Age plays in English and now is about respecting the paradoxes of old and new, English and Spanish, but not letting the surface otherness get in the way of gaining access to the essential values of the texts. The plays are clearly rooted in their own culture and context, and it is important to be aware of the differences of our assumptions and values and respect the cultural otherness of the plays. But if the plays are worth performing, they must be both entertaining and instructive for our times and our audiences. (communication to the author)
Boswell remade No hay burlas into a light-hearted evening of theatre that raised the play from the ashes of relative obscurity in Britain into a colorful and contemporary exploration of the changeable flight path of love.
My past experience with this director means that I did not attend The Phoenix of madrid as a detached observer. I have collaborated with Boswell since 2004, serving as script consultant and rehearsal dramaturg for two of the plays in the RSC season, and as script consultant for his English Fuenteovejuna in Canada.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Remaking the ComediaSpanish Classical Theater in Adaptation, pp. 133 - 142Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015