In 1656, a few days before the feast of Corpus Christi, Philip IV ordered the cancellation of a performance of Calderón’s auto sacramental La protestación de la fe, which referred to the conversion of Christina, Queen of Sweden to Catholicism. Spanish diplomats played a key role in the events that the whole Europe followed with great attention: from the abdication of Christina, Queen of Sweden in 1654, to her ceremonial entry into Rome towards the end of 1655. It was expected that the Queen would visit Spain and be a mediator in the matters concerning the war with France which had been going on for over twenty years. All this was meticulously reported by, among others, Jerónimo de Barrionuevo, the author of Avisos (Reports) from the years 1654–1658. However, after arriving in Rome, Christina turned away from the Spanish diplomats and openly started showing her interest in France. Detailed reports on the situation in Rome started arriving in Madrid in May, and this should explain the intervention of the king, who ordered the “auto about the Queen of Sweden” to be cancelled (Barrionuevo, II, p. 423). The text of the play survived and its premiere took place almost one hundred years later, in 1752. It is a unique composition in which current events, known from oral and printed accounts, have undergone allegoric transformation. It is difficult to rule out the court’s mediation in the choice of the auto subject and it seems that Calderón assumed that the protagonists, including Queen Christina herself, would be present at the premiere, which gives the entire composition a Baroque dimension of multiplied mirror, very characteristic of the playwright’s late work. Reality mingles with stage fiction. Calderón used the iconographic canons popular at that time, which can be seen especially in the scene where Queen Christina is introduced: this dramatized portrait of the Queen of Sweden shows her focused, reading the writings of St. Augustine.
The article presents the history of the reception of El príncipe constante by Pedro Calderón de la Barca as translated by Juliusz Słowacki in Poland in connection with the form which both names — of the author and the translator — took on the poster, beginning with the premiere at Teatr Krakowski in 1874 and ending with the production of The Constant Prince directed by Jerzy Grotowski. The author draws on the opinion of Polish theatre scholars, who — on the basis of recent works devoted to the analysis of the play’s translation — are inclined to treat Słowacki’s Constant Prince as a “performative experience of [...] acting” turned into a “theatrical scenario.”
Antonio Buero Vallejo in a letter written to Florian Śmieja, a Polish Hispanist, on the 20th of February 1975, mentions a Polish translation of the drama El sueño de la razón published by Dialog, Polish theatre review edited in Warsaw, and the oncoming first Polish performance of the play by Andrzej Wajda. The article discusses in detail the circumstances and material documents of the performance of El sueño de la razón at the Teatr na Woli in Warsaw, on the 21st of March 1976, with Tadeusz Łomnicki as Goya, as well as makes a reflection on a rather scarce presence of Buero Vallejo in the Polish theatre. Only two plays by Buero Vallejo have been translated to and published in Polish: El sueño de la razón (1974) and El concierto de San Ovidio (1987).
The article focuses on the theatrum mundi metaphor in Calderón, viewed in the context of the debate concerning the metatheatrical dimension of his plays. It discusses studies on the subject preceding the metatheatre theory by Lionel Abel (Ernst R. Curtius, Walter Benjamin, Jean Jacquot), as well as the ensuing debate on metatheatre among Spanish Golden Age scholars and its implications for the comedia research (Henryk Ziomek, Catherine Larson, Thomas A. O’Connor, F. P. Casa, Urszula Aszyk, Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, Jonathan Thacker, Graciela Balestrino, Kasia Lech). Sławomir Świontek’s concept of metatheatre is applied to analyse La vida es sueño and El gran teatro del mundo, and both are shown to be paradigmatic and exemplary metatheatre plays. The author discusses the meta-enunciative properties of dramatic dialogue and its metatheatrical cues in Calderón and underscores the importance of the mise en abyme effect implied by the distinctly self-reflexive qualities of the plays. The use of metatheatrical devices is studied throughout the playwright’s work, in the comedia (La vida es sueño and Amor, honor y poder), auto sacramental (El gran teatro del mundo and La protestación de la fe), as well as entremés (El toreador), and mojiganga (Mundinovo, Las visiones de la muerte). The resulting metatheatrical quality, achieved through Calderón’s targeting on the spectator-actor and reality-fiction relations, lets the audience look into the mirror of theatre to see infinitely reproducing reflexions of themselves, viz. the theatre of the world.
PL
Artykuł koncentruje się na metaforze theatrum mundi u Calderóna, rozpatrywanej w kontekście debaty dotyczącej metateatralnego wymiaru jego sztuk. Omówiono badania na ten temat poprzedzające teorię metateatru Lionela Abla (Ernst R. Curtius, Walter Benjamin, Jean Jacquot), a także późniejszą debatę na temat metateatru wśród hiszpańskich badaczy Złotego Wieku i jej implikacje dla badań nad komedią (Henryk Ziomek, Catherine Larson, Thomas A. O'Connor, F.P. Casa, Urszula Aszyk, Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, Jonathan Thacker, Graciela Balestrino, Kasia Lech). Koncepcja metateatru Sławomira Świontka zostaje zastosowana do analizy La vida es sueño i El gran teatro del mundo, które okazują się paradygmatycznymi i wzorcowymi spektaklami metateatralnymi. Autorka omawia metawypowiedzeniowe właściwości dialogu dramatycznego i jego samozwrotność u Calderóna i podkreśla znaczenie efektu mise en abyme implikowanego przez wyraźnie autorefleksyjne cechy sztuk. Wykorzystanie środków metateatralnych można zaobserwować w całej twórczości dramaturga, w komediach (La vida es sueño i Amor, honor y poder), autos sacramentales (El gran teatro del mundo i La protestación de la fe), a także entremés (El toreador) i mojiganga (Mundinovo, Las visiones de la muerte). Wynikająca z tego metateatralna jakość, osiągnięta dzięki skupieniu się Calderóna na relacjach widz-aktor i rzeczywistość-fikcja, pozwala widzom spojrzeć w lustro teatru, aby zobaczyć reprodukujące się własne odbicia, czyli teatr świata.
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