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SpanishGoldenAge-1.pptxThe Spanish golden age
El Siglo de Oro
Let’s back up for a minute
So in the 16th Century we see the professionalization of theater in Europe.
What are some examples of this that we have already discussed?
The professionalization of theater means that theater moves away from religious purposes and more predominantly for entertainment.
It also means there are people relying on the success of the theater for their livelihood. This includes producers, playwrights and actors. THERE ARE NO DIRECTORS YET.
The other major societal/cultural change is the PRINTING PRESS (15th Century in Germany). By the 1580s actors were expected to know a play and not to improvise it. After 1600 more plays were published and plays were more readily available to acting companies
Let’s get to Spain
This period is called the Golden Age – Siglo de Oro – because it is considered the most rich (literally and figuratively) in Spain’s History.
Today you may think of Spain as just a country in Europe (large but not too large compared to countries like Russia or the United States) BUT Spain was once an Empire (from the 15th Century to the 19th Century) whose conquests reached out across the world including to places that we now call the United States, Central America and South America.
What does it mean to have an Empire?
The Spanish Inquisition
The Inquisition was a powerful office set up within the Catholic Church to root out and punish heresy throughout Europe and the Americas. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims. Its worst manifestation was in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition was a dominant force for more than 200 years, resulting in some 32,000 executions.
Hearing the complaints of Conversos who had fled to Rome, Pope Sextus proclaimed the Spanish Inquisition was too harsh and was wrongly accusing Conversos. In 1482 Sextus appointed a council to take command of the Inquisition.
Torquemada was named Inquisitor General and established courts across Spain. Torture became systemized and routinely used to elicit confessions.
Sentencing of confessed heretics was done in a public event called the Auto-da-Fe. All heretics wore a sackcloth with a single eyehole over their heads. Heretics who refused to confess were burned at the stake.
As Spain expanded into the Americas, so did the Inquisition, established in Mexico in 1570. In 1574, Lutherans were burned at the stake there, and the Inquisition came to Peru, where Protestants were likewise tortured and burned alive.
In 1580 Spain conquered Portugal and began rounding up and slaughtering Jews that had fled Spain. Philip II also renewed hostilities against the Moors, who revolted and found themselves either killed or sold into slavery.
Philip II died in 1598 and his son, Philip III, dealt with the Muslim uprising by banishing them. From 1609 to 1615, 150,000 Muslims who had converted to Catholicism were forced out of Spain.
By the mid-1600s the Inquisition and Catholic dominance had become such an oppressive fact of daily life in Spanish territories that Protestants avoided those places altogether.
Drama
In the 1590s unlike in London where theatrical companies were attached to specific theaters, Spanish acting troupes did not control their playhouse
This meant they had to tour and look for residencies in aristocratic houses
The public theatres are referred to as CORRALES
They varied in size but usually included an open courtyard with a platform stage at one end and backstage space behind it
Male standees occupied the patio, wealthier patrons (men and women) sat in the gradas and the cazuela was occupied by women
The staging as was the case in England was simple. The continuous stage action which did not involve scenery changes involved other characteristic markers of the time including direct address to the audience, plots involving intrigue and disguise, stock characters and fast-moving dialogue.
The plays themselves were appealing to wealthy and non-wealthy patrons.
The main categories are the history play, the romantic drama known as the CAPA Y ESPADA (cloak and sword honor drama) and AUTO SACRAMANTALES which were allegories that glorified the Spanish throne as defenders of the Catholic Faith.
1600s and 1700s
After 1620 the Spanish royal court began to sponsor the theater but largely ignored it
This meant that Spanish playwrights were mostly free to write about whatever they wanted to (compare this to England)
They looked towards both Spanish stories but also Italian dramas
Playwrights and Other Famous Artists
Lope de Vega
Calderon de la Barca
Diego Velazquez (painter)
Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote)
The King
During the reign of King Philip IV (1621-1665) the Spanish crown exerted more control over the theater as it became more absolutist in its power
