The stage of early modern Spain is cluttered with things: objects that designate identity, social status, wealth, and often, political authority. Objects are central, even indispensable, in communicating the comedia’s multiplicity of meanings – the alcalde’s [mayor’s] staff used by Pedro Crespo that establishes his authority; the sword hilt in which Gutierre, “el médico de su honra” [the physician of his honour],1 identifies the threat to his honour; Rosaura’s sword in La vida es sueño, which carries within it the history of her mother’s seduction and a clue to her own identity; the misdirected letters or dropped handkerchiefs that compromise lovers in countless comedias de enredo [comedies of intrigue]; and, of course, the portraits that – as Laura Bass has superbly demonstrated – often play a crucial role in the plots. These props go well beyond the status of mere decoration and are all part of the material fabric of a play in performance, contributing to the construction of meaning in the imagination and experience of the spectator.
The incorporation of objects on the stage was also a factor in the history and development of the comedia as practice. In the bare tablas [stage] of the corrales in sixteenth-century Spain, objects complemented and supplemented the minimalist scenery and lack of theatrical devices. Even as the theatre became more elaborate, carefully selected objects metonymically imparted crucial information to the audience. Candles, torches, and blindfolds, for example, created the illusion of nighttime in outdoor performances that had to take advantage of the light of day. Jose María Ruano de la Haza has seen parallels between the sometimes stark seventeenth-century public stage and the modern theatre:
la técnica de representar en los teatros comerciales del siglo XVII tiene mucho en común con la de un teatro moderno experimental, en el que unos cuantos objetos, más o menos realistas, pueden dar al público una idea bastante exacta del lugar donde se desarrolla la acción …
[the staging technique in the commercial theatres of the seventeenth century has a great deal in common with that of modern experimental theatre, in which a few more or less realistic objects give the public a fairly exact idea of where the action takes place …] (2000, 31–2)
As the comedia nueva developed and visual elements became more and more prevalent, objects acquired an importance far beyond the suggestion of specific settings for the dramatic plot. Some years ago, there was a debate among critics on whether the comedia was primarily meant to be heard or to be seen and whether the use of decor and stage properties had any real importance in the performance of the plays. Alicia Amadei-Pulice, for example, argued that the relative starkness of the early corral stage was an indication that these plays were “para oír” [to be heard], and that it was not until the development of the teatro palaciego [courtly theatre] that the comedia acquired a true spectacular visual dimension:
El corral era un estrado pobre, con escasísimos elementos, decorado con la palabra poética, el verso, la imagen descriptiva, la alusión simbólica, la cadencia de la rima, algún que otro gesto del recitante.
[The corral was a modest platform, with very scarce devices, decorated only with poetic words, verse, descriptive images, symbolic allusions, the cadences of rhyme, the occasional gesture of the performer.] (1990, 36)
In his analysis of Lope de Vega’s play Los comendadores de Córdoba, Manuel Abad Gómez goes so far as to assert that the play is “un claro ejemplo de un teatro dirigido a un público […] que acude a los corrales para oír, no para ver […] Teatro que parece exigir oyentes, no espectadores” [a clear example of a drama meant for an audience […] that goes to the corrales to hear, not to see […] This theatre seems to demand hearers, not viewers] (1984, 12). Other critics, prominently Ruano de la Haza and Victor Dixon, have rightly restored the importance of the visual dimension of the comedia even in the outdoor corrales: “Es absurdo afirmar que la dimensión visual está ausente de la Comedia, o que la comedia es un género meramente auditivo, o que la parte espectacular del teatro, todo lo que percibía la vista, casi no contaba” [It is absurd to affirm that the visual dimension is absent from the comedia, or that the comedia is solely an auditory genre, or that the spectacular dimension of the theatre, everything that was visually perceived, did not count for much] (Ruano 2000, 13). At the same time, it is true that the appearance of theatrical spaces such as the Coliseo del Buen Retiro and the Salón Dorado in the Alcázar promoted a dazzling evolution in stagecraft. The teatro palaciego would become a complex exercise in materiality with its multiple use of extralinguistic devices, the sophisticated tramoyería [stage machinery], elaborate costumes, and illusionist scenery all requiring the participation of talented men such as Cosimo Lotti and Baccio del Bianco, the special effects technicians of their day. As Amadei Pulice states, in the palace theatre: “el decorado es tan espectacular que habla de por sí, emite signos significativos de un lenguaje plástico” [the decor is so spectacular that it almost speaks on its own; it emits the important signs of a plastic language]; and it is not surprising that in his treatise on drama, Nueva idea de la tragedia antigua, Jusepe Antonio González de Salas deemed it necessary to emend Aristotle’s theories of tragedy by adding two new components: música [music] and aparato [apparatus] (Amadei Pulice 1990, 73). Stage properties, or utilería, were an important component of that aparato.
A consideration of the use of stage properties in individual plays, whether in the palace or the corrales, continues to provide insights into the polyphonic aesthetic of the comedia. In this study, I am concerned specifically with those devices that designate and simultaneously problematize monarchical authority in an early play by Calderón de la Barca, La gran Cenobia (1625). It is recognized that the theatre of seventeenth-century Spain was obsessively concerned with dramatizing kingship;2 in the hands of playwrights such as Lope, Calderón, Tirso de Molina, and Bances Candamo, among others, theatre became a particular manifestation of the speculum principis tradition. That is, the comedia provided a singularly suggestive space for dramatizing lessons in kingship, lessons that often echoed the criticism and advice that appeared in political treatises written by arbitristas and respected political theorists such as Diego de Saavedra Fajardo and Juan de Mariana. Within the theatrical representation and exploration of monarchical power, stage properties played an important role. In this study, I will limit myself to analysing three events in La gran Cenobia where objects are used in such a way that they transform the action on the stage and even seem to compete with the characters for the attention of the spectator. Although, for the most part, the modern reader experiences these comedia objects as embedded textual events, I am interested in exploring how they might have functioned as part of an actual performance on stage, and how they might have been experienced by an audience in the seventeenth century.3 I have chosen La gran Cenobia as an example because the play offers a double performance of power where positive and negative exemplars of monarchy are simultaneously presented. What makes the play particularly appealing to modern sensibilities is that, in the almost Manichean opposition between enlightened and disastrous models of authority, the positive exemplar is a woman. What is more, in the gendered struggle for power that this play enacts, stage objects become essential components in establishing and simultaneously commenting on monarchical authority.
The first event that I will examine occurs at the very beginning of La gran Cenobia when Aureliano, a ruthless and ambitious Roman general, appears “en pieles” [in furs]. His attire is an early indication that he will embody an uncivilized and dangerous force. Juan de Mariana, among other theorists of the monarchy, ascribed animalistic attributes to ambitious and cruel princes, as a warning against the dangers of tyranny. In his Del rey y de la institución real, for example, Mariana explicitly exclaims, “el tirano es una bestia fiera y cruel” [the tyrant is a fierce and cruel beast] (1854, v. 482]. The association is an ancient one; Plato in the Republic and the Gorgias called the tyrant a “natural” man, nearer in character to an animal because he seeks only to satisfy his own ambition.4 The pieles worn by Aureliano would have immediately communicated his unsuitability as a prince. Equally as important as Aureliano’s costume, however, is the presence in this first scene of two objects charged with dramatic and ideological significance. They emerge first not as concrete objects, but rather as references in a soliloquy in which Aureliano relates a dream that he has just had. In this oneiric vision, the dead emperor Quintilio had addressed him and said: “Ves aquí mi laurel, mi cetro toma, que tu serás emperador de Roma” [Look at my laurel crown and take my sceptre, for you shall be the emperor of Rome] (1974, vv. 21–2).5 Shortly afterwards, according to the stage direction, “Descúbrese sobre un peñasco la corona y el cetro en una rama” [On a crag, the crown and sceptre are revealed on a branch] (1974, 4). Aureliano’s words have materialized into actual objects on the stage, experienced in three dimensions by the audience.6 Here, the playwright seems to be enacting what Andrew Soffer in The Stage Life of Props calls the “uneasy position between text and performance” (2003, vi) that stage props occupy. That is, the crown and the sceptre manifest themselves first as embedded textual events through Aureliano’s speech; but then, these textual signifiers are translated into concrete objects upon the stage. This dynamic replicates the status of props in drama in general in that they “appear” first as textual signifiers but are invisible to the reader who may or may not capture their importance. It is only in the actual performance that these objects become “materialized” and are perceived by a spectator as important dramatic signifiers.
Returning to Calderón’s play, it is worth considering what sort of objects the crown and sceptre represent, and what might confer upon them the category of true dramatic prop rather than merely a decoration. The laurel crown and the sceptre, as universally recognized emblems of monarchy, bring with them overly determined historical, cultural, and ideological baggage. And yet, here, they appear first only as static objects, hanging on a branch, in a kind of suspended animation. Despite the familiarity of these objects, simply by virtue of appearing on a stage they “acquire an invisible set of quotation marks,” a process Umberto Eco calls “phenomenon ostension” (Soffer 2003, 7). The effect of this ostension is to make the audience take in not only the actual object but an entire series of connotations – in this case royalty, power, and authority. At the same time, the placement of these objects upon a branch would also provide an iconic representation of disembodied or perhaps absent monarchy. When Aureliano takes the items down from the branch and puts them on, however, they abandon their condition as motionless emblems and become concretized and activated on the stage, literally put into play by the actor playing the Roman general. And it is this motion through the space of the stage and the time of the performance that distinguishes a prop from other stage objects. That is, the three-dimensionality of the object on stage is not enough. According to Soffer, “motion is the prop’s defining feature” and “a prop demands actual embodiment and motion on the stage in order to spring to imaginative life” (2003, vi). Aureliano himself recognizes the galvanizing power of these objects when he exclaims as he reaches out for them: “un aliento Nuevo / un espíritu altivo que me inflama el coraçon, / a tanto honor me llama” [a new force, a new arrogant spirit that inflames my heart, beckons me towards such high honour] (1974, vv. 56–8). David Hildner in his discussion of reason and the passions in La gran Cenobia highlights the importance of the crown and sceptre: “It is the crown and the scepter which exert the influence suggested by the active verbs inflamar and llamar, while the speaker becomes the direct object of their action” (1982, 52).
The objects in question are acted upon, put into motion, by the figure of Aureliano, and, interestingly, they in turn transform him. When Aureliano as bearer and motivator of these two props proceeds to admire himself in a pool of water – “En este lisongero / espejo fugitivo mirar quiero / cómo el resplandeciente / laurel asienta en mi dichosa frente” [In this flattering and fugitive mirror I want to see how this resplendent laurel sits on my fortunate forehead] (1974, vv. 67–70) – the objects placed on his body confer upon him a new identity and authority. As he stares, newly adorned with these props, at his reflection he sees himself drastically changed: he is no longer a mere man but an actual representation of the world itself:
Pequeño mundo soy, y en esto fundo
Que en ser señor de mí, lo soy del mundo.
[I am a microcosm, a small world, and based on this, I believe that by mastering myself, I will become master of the world] (1974, vv. 65–6)
As Frederick de Armas has pointed out, “Here Aureliano is applying the Renaissance theory of man as a microcosm. Since he can rule himself, he claims, he can also rule the world, which is part of the macrocosm” (1986, 73). In addition, Aureliano himself has become an image, an almost inanimate object. Indeed, he goes on to consecrate that image of himself reflected in the pool of water by describing it as a painting, an icon that demands reverence and adoration:
¡O sagrada figura!,
haga el original a la pintura
debida reverencia,
quando llevado en mis discursos hallo
que yo doy y recibo la obediencia,
siendo mi Emperador y mi vasallo.
[Oh sacred figure! Let the original give due reverence to the painting, when in the midst of my eloquence I find that I both demand and receive obedience, since I am both my emperor and my vassal] (1974, vv. 70–5)
In this (perhaps ironic) internal rendering of the speculum principis topos, Aureliano becomes at once viewer and image, original and pintura [painting], both subject and object. The sequence of events involving Aureliano and his interaction with these props on the stage could have communicated a series of simultaneous messages to the audience. We have already said that when the disembodied objects are revealed hanging on a tree branch, the suggestion may be of an abandoned, discarded monarchy. They also suggest parts of a theatrical costume that can be taken on and off, with the monarch being merely a player who can don this particular disguise as easily as any other. Indeed, the movement from branch to the body of Aureliano might also suggest the mutability and the arbitrariness of power. More important, the incongruous juxtaposition on the same body of animal skins with objects that carry with them a long cultural history designating authority would have provided a rather bizarre visual tableau. Aureliano becomes an ambulatory oxymoron, a beast that is transformed into a prince and an uncivilized presence claiming to be a sacred image. Familiar signifiers become thus de-familiarized, allowing the audience to interpret them anew and, indeed, to question and confront the received meaning of these symbols. The play was most likely staged first in a corral but we do know that it was also performed in the royal palace in 1625,7 when Philip IV was twenty years old and had been on the throne for only four years. Given that this was a time of considerable social and political turmoil presided over by an inexperienced and somewhat irresponsible king, comedias took advantage of the stage to impart lessons on monarchy. The presence and manipulation of these objects in the initial scene in La gran Cenobia suggest a critique of the current state of affairs, particularly the instability of the monarchy and a warning to the pleasure-loving king against allowing his “instinctual” nature to distort his duties as a monarch. These props, therefore, also illustrate the potential ideological dimension in Calderón’s handling of stage properties.
Queen Cenobia, the eponymous character of the play, will provide a distinct contrast to the unsettling figure of Aureliano. She is a strong military leader (in fact, when the play begins, she has just defeated the Roman forces led by the Roman general Decio) and she is also a wise and generous ruler – a philosopher queen. Her dramatic subjectivity, like Aureliano’s, will be defined in great part by the things she carries and manipulates on stage. For one thing, her presence on stage repeatedly provides a positive alternative to the incongruous tableau presented by Aureliano at the beginning of the play. In the second act, for example, Cenobia enters “con armas negras, vestida de luto, leyendo en un libro” [with black armour, dressed in mourning, reading a book] (1974, 34). The austere costume and the armour will communicate immediately to the audience her strength and gravitas, in sharp contrast to her Roman foe. Cenobia’s armour will serve as a reminder to the audience that she has recently triumphed militarily over Rome, and her mourning attire supplements the news that her husband Abdenato has died and she is now sole ruler. The book she carries acquires particular significance as well. While it is not clear who the author is, the book is an account or chronicle of, as she puts it, “qué se dize por aí de Cenobia” [what people are saying about Cenobia] (1974, vv. 1146–7). She reads from it aloud to Libio and Irene:
(Lee) “Que, viendo a Decio vencido,
vino al Oriente Aureliano
con todo el poder Romano
de su poder ofendido;
y que, habiéndole cercado
enemiga, la asaltó
tres veces, y tres bolvió
rompido y desbaratado
…
También se dize que hoy es
cuando la batalla quiere
dar; y lo que sucediere
della se dirá después.”
[CENOBIA: Listen … (she reads) “Since he saw a vanquished Decio, Aureliano came to the East with all the Roman might offended by her power; and having besieged the enemy, he attacked three times, and three times, he returned broken and defeated … It is also said that today is when he will fight again, and what happens then will be recounted later.” (1974, vv. 1156–64, 1179–82)
What is remarkable about this account is that the textual prop that she carries summarizes the action of the play right up to that very moment (“hoy es …”) when she finds herself reading out loud. In addition, the book also anticipates Libio’s treason which will take place later in the second act:
CENOBIA: Buelvo, Libio, a proseguir:
(Lee) “En este tiempo embiudó;
y, atreviéndose por ver
en el Reino una muger,
no faltó quien procuró
de secreto conjurar
la gente y, dándole mano
al exército Romano
y tributo, conspirar
a la Corona …”
[CENOBIA: I shall continue reading, Libio: [she reads] “It was around this time that she became a widow; and emboldened at seeing a woman on the throne, there were some who tried in secret to rouse the populace and, collaborating with the Roman army, to conspire against the Crown …”] (1974, vv. 1186–95)
The document that Cenobia is reading, therefore, conflates three different “historical” and dramatic moments: the recent past of her victory against Rome; the present moment of reading that is also the day when Aureliano will attack again; and the future, in that it alludes to a betrayal that has not yet taken place.
Cenobia will handle yet another “book” in a later scene of the second act. The stage directions state: “Dexan un bufete con aderezo de escrivir y Cenobia se sienta a escrivir” [They leave a small desk and writing materials and Cenobia sits and starts writing] (1974, 53). In addition to her military triumphs, the queen reveals herself as the author of a “historical” narrative (perhaps it is one and the same, but this is never made quite clear):
Por no dejar que olvide
el tiempo mi alabanza,
papel que siempre finge
a la verdad grandezas
y a la envidia imposibles,
la mujer que pelea
es la misma que escribe,
que a un mismo tiempo iguales
espada y pluma rige.
Historia del Oriente
la llamo; así prosigue: Escrive.
[So as not to permit the passage of time to forget my accomplishments, the paper that always simulates great deeds from the truth and impossible exploits to inspire envy, [for] the woman who fights is also the one who writes, and she wields equally a sword and a pen at the same time. I call it The History of the Orient and I proceed thus: (she starts writing).] (1974, vv. 1800–10)
The volume Historia oriental chronicles the history of Cenobia’s people and includes descriptions of her recent triumphs as a military and political leader. The audience then observes her in the very act of composing a history that is also her-story, a verbal iteration to some of the actions that the spectators have already witnessed or heard about:
Aureliano y, humilde,
socorros poderosos
a Egipto y Persia pide.
[At that time, Aureliano retreated and, humbled, he asks for powerful help from Egypt and Persia.] (1974, vv. 1811–14)
Cenobia’s connection to this Historia oriental is simultaneously as author, reader, and subject. Moreover, in this dramatization of the act of writing, there ensues a remarkable moment in which the notion that props can acquire a life of their own on the stage becomes quite literal. As the queen writes in the memoir a description of Libio, her unscrupulous nephew, the paper – an inert prop – becomes animated:
“… en este tiempo Libio …”
El Libio, ¡ay de mí, triste!,
escrito está con sangre
y, al ir a repetirle,
sangre brotó la herida
y mesa y papel tiñen
deshojados claveles
o líquidos rubíes.
[“… at that point in time, Libio…” Woe is me! The “Libio” is written in blood; and, when I tried to repeat it, the wound blossomed anew with blood, and both table and paper are stained with petal-less carnations or liquid rubies.] (1974, vv. 1815–22)
We are again reminded of Soffer’s notion that a prop demands actual embodiment and motion on the stage in order to spring to imaginative life. Calderón brilliantly illustrates this dynamism of objects through what we might call the transubstantiation of the paper into a body that bleeds. Yolanda Novo explains that this effect might have been accomplished in performance through the use of “una tintura roja que la actriz llevase debajo de la manga de su vestido o el papel previamente teñido de color rojo” [a red tincture that the actress could have carried under her sleeve or a paper previously dyed in red] (2003, 377). The paper covered with blood is evidence of the crime that Libio has already committed – he has murdered Cenobia’s husband Abdenato; in fact, the “ghost” of Abdenato, appears simultaneously as the paper bleeds. It is also a premonition of future crimes – the blood that will be shed when Aureliano attacks Palmyra after Libio betrays the queen.
Incidentally, although not as spectacular as this “living prop,” there are other written texts in the play that are important to the development of plot and character. We have, for example, the memoriales carried by the soldiers to an audience with Cenobia in the first act. These petitions, objects presented to the queen, contribute to her characterization as a wise and compassionate ruler, as the soldiers make clear: “¡Qué govierno!” “¡Qué muger!” / “¡Qué valor!” and “¡qué prudencia!” [What authority! What a woman! What valour! What prudence!] (1974, vv. 648–9). In the third act, there will be a parallel scene where other soldiers also present memoriales to Aureliano, only to have him arrogantly dismiss their petitions – “!Qué cansados pretendientes! / ¿Qué más premio han de tener / los soldados? ¿El servirme / no basta para interés?” [What dreary claimants! What more reward do these soldiers want? Isn’t the honour of serving me enough?] (1974, vv. 2613–16) – and even go so far as to destroy the written requests: “No me digas más; / romper puedes ese memorial, / que ya premiado se ve: / ya tiene más que merece / donde me vio” [Don’t say another word; you can tear up that petition; he has already been rewarded. Indeed, what else could he want after gazing upon me?] (1974, vv. 2634–8). The manner in which these two characters interact with the same objects vividly illustrates the differences in their natures and their suitability (or lack thereof) to govern judiciously. Other documents that will play a significant role in the play are the falsified papers that the cowardly servant Persio steals from the body of the dead soldier, Adriano:
Un soldado venial
soy, que nunca mortalmente
reñí. Un soldado valiente
muerto hallé en un arenal
y estos papeles, que son
de sus hechos testimonio,
quité. Llamábase Andronio
y, gozando la ocasión
a pretender he venido
mudando el Persio en su nombre.
[I am but a venial soldier, for I’ve never fought to the death. I found the body of a dead valiant soldier in a sandy terrain and I took these papers, testimony of his deeds. His name was Andronio and, taking advantage of this opportunity, I have come seeking favours substituting “Persio” for his name.] (1974, vv. 741–50)
Although they appear but briefly, Persio /Andrenio’s papers become a subtle metadramatic device, a witty allusion to the ease with which actors take up new roles or “papeles.” This being a typical Calderonian play, Persio will not be the only character who will self-consciously assume different roles and identities through items of clothing: the Roman general Decio, more than once, will hide his face behind a “banda” [sash] so as not to be recognized; and Libio and Irene will don the disguise of “villanos” [peasants] in the third act.
The last event I want to examine occurs in the last act as well. Cenobia’s military prowess will lead to a second defeat of the Roman forces led by the brutal general. This stunning humiliation at the hands of a woman will inspire in Aureliano a blinding and obsessive desire to avenge himself and he vows to vanquish Cenobia and place her “humilde a mis pies postrada” [humbled and prostrate at my feet] (1974, v. 503). He makes good on his promise and this will generate another remarkable activation of the utilería of the play. We learn that, through Libio’s treachery, Aureliano has been able to capture Cenobia and is about to enter the city in triumph manufacturing an ostentatious pageant of victory. The stage directions are as follows: “Suena la música, y entran Soldados delante, y detrás un carro triunfal, en el cual viene Aureliano Emperador, y a sus pies Cenobia, muy bizarra, atadas las manos, y tirando del carro cautivos y detrás gente” [Music is heard and soldiers enter first; behind them, there appears a triumphal carriage on which stands the emperor Aureliano; and, at his feet, Cenobia, elaborately attired, her hands tied; with slaves pulling the cart; and behind, more people] (1974, 64). Numerous objects are simultaneously presented on stage: a carro triunfal, a throne; and Aureliano calls special attention to the gold crown he is wearing, which he contrasts to the laurel he had donned in the first act:
No de laurel coronado
llego a verte, porque fuera
a tanta ocasión pequeño
señor; inmortal diadema
que ya quiero que esta sea
insignia de emperadores,
ciñendo yo la primera.
[No longer crowned in mere laurel do I appear before you, because that would make me a lesser lord in an occasion as grand as this; instead, an immortal diadem of gold crowns my brow and it is my wish that by being the first to wear it, it may henceforth become the insignia of emperors.] (1974, vv. 2103–10)
All these attributes of power pale in comparison to the real prize: Cenobia’s abject and objectified body. Decio, who is in love with Cenobia, is a witness and provides a verbal description to accompany this spectacle of humiliation:
En un triunfal carro, a quien
en vez de rústicas fieras
racionales brutos tiran,
atados cautivos llevan;
él en lo más eminente
del triunfal carro se asienta
en un trono, a imitación
hermosa de algún Planeta.
Luego va Cenobia … ¡Ay triste!
¿Tendrá espíritu la lengua
para decirte que va
Cenobia a sus plantas puesta,
ricamente aderezada,
hermosamente compuesta,
donde, como en centro viven
piedras, oro, plata y perlas?
Atadas las blancas manos
con riquísimas cadenas
de oro (prisiones, en fin,
¿qué importa que ricas sean?),
va a sus pies, y él, profanando
el respeto y la belleza,
el sagrado bulto pisa,
la imagen rica atropella.
[In a triumphal chariot, drawn by shackled slaves and not rustic beasts, there he sits upon a throne in the most prominent position of the triumphal car, a beautiful imitation of some Planet.8 Then comes Cenobia … ¡oh, woe is me! Can my tongue be strong enough to tell you that Cenobia – richly dressed, beautifully composed, in the centre where there are precious stones, gold, silver, and pearls – lies at his feet? The white hands are tied with rich chains of gold (they are prisons so what does it matter how rich they are?), she lies at his feet and he, profaning both respect and beauty, treads on her sacred body, abusing her rich image.] (1974, vv. 2051–74)
Cenobia is laden with objects: “oro,” “piedras,” “plata,” “perlas,” and “riquísimas cadenas de oro.” Furthermore, according to Decio’s account, the chariot is being pulled by “brutos racionales” that is, slaves, human beasts of burden, men and women who have been transformed into chattel and are themselves moving stage properties in Aureliano’s pageant. Cenobia herself is in chains, also hardly more than a prop, a “santo bulto,” an “imagen rica.” Wearing her most ostentatious and dazzling garb, she has become part of Aureliano’s booty, a “trofeo infelice / de un traidor y un tirano” [unhappy trophy of a traitor and tyrant] (1974, vv. 1780–1). As the tyrant tramples her almost inanimate “bulto,” Cenobia becomes an object that literally bolsters or props up his authority. The semioticians Shoshana Avigal and Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan have stated that for an item to be an effective theatrical prop, certain basic requirements must be fulfilled: first it must be either already inanimate or capable of becoming inanimate; second, it must be capable of being transported by another character; third, it must be deprived of intentionality; that is, the object is manipulated but cannot itself initiate discourse (1981, 13). These three conditions apply to greater or lesser degrees to the character of Cenobia in this triumphant entrance where, as she is being displayed and transported in the carro triunfal, the queen is rendered almost inanimate and momentarily silent. In the previous scenes considered here, objects like the sceptre, the crown, and the paper seem to acquire a life of their own by being moved through space or by being animated by the subjects that manipulate them. Here, a moving, breathing subject is reified, virtually made into an object through a cruel performance of enslavement and humiliation. There is, what is more, a gendered component to this spectacle. Earlier in the play, when Aureliano wanted to punish Decio, he did so by depriving him of his sword – thus symbolically unmanning him. This humiliation is effected through the removal of an overly determined prop from his body, but there is no question that Decio remains a free agent able to move about and escape Aureliano’s ire. In Cenobia’s case, nothing but subjugation and reification will do, as precious objects are piled on her body and she becomes little more than yet another static signifier of Aureliano’s power. It is worth noting at this point that in Calderonian plays that dramatize women who assume political authority, we often witness singularly harsh spectacles of punishment for these queens. Semiramis in La hija del aire is crushed and broken after being thrown into a precipice, her body riddled with arrows. In the last scene of La cisma de Inglaterra, Ana Bolena’s headless body lies at the base of the throne wrapped in a silken cloth. La gran Cenobia, a play that ostensibly presents a woman as a capable and wise leader, nevertheless also stages a singularly ostentatious way of putting a powerful woman in her place through the activation of a whole assortment of stage properties. Interestingly, after this point in the play, Cenobia will never again recapture her majesty; when she does regain the throne, it will be only as Decio’s consort.9
The anthropologist Arjun Appadurai tells us that objects possess “life histories or careers of exchange that invest them with social significance and cultural value” (1986, 34). In the comedia, objects on stage acquire significance, not only through their symbolic associations, but also through their repeated theatrical use. In Calderonian plays dealing with monarchy and the negotiation of power, many of the same props tend to appear over and over again. A brilliant manipulator of theatrical codes, Calderón deliberately appropriates the symbolic life of an object and puts it into play. Stage properties, according to theatre semiotician Marvin Carlson, “are retrospective, they are ‘ghosted’ by their previous stage incarnations, and hence by a theatrical past they both embody and critique” (1994, 12). I would suggest that Calderón, in employing certain superannuated props is not just invoking theatrical tradition but also infusing these symbols of power with new meaning. Through their frequent use on the stage, objects like sceptres, crowns, thrones, and books all acquire an accumulated cultural significance and resonance, readily accessible to spectators. However, these devices truly achieve their performative potential when their cultural value and social significance are made strange before an audience. A man in animal skins wearing a crown and a sceptre, a paper that bleeds, a bejewelled woman reduced to an immobile bulto to be trampled are all testaments to the potential ideological power implicit in Calderón’s creative manipulation of props. Familiar signifiers become defamiliarized, allowing the audience to interpret them anew and question and confront the received meaning born by these objects. At a time of dire social and political circumstances presided over by kings who were increasingly viewed as ineffectual, the comedia often served as a way of simultaneously preserving symbols of monarchy and, at the same time, critiquing their debasement. The manipulation of certain objects in plays like La gran Cenobia contributed to the continuing construction, negotiation, and interrogation of power. If we remember that the actual monarch himself was often the privileged intended spectator of these plays, we might be tempted to claim that it is the play’s things that catch the conscience of the king and that of the comedia audience of early modern Spain.
1 All translations from Spanish to English are by the author unless otherwise referenced in the appropriate passage.
2 See, for example, Fox, Kings in Calderón, Hampton, Writing from History, and McKendrick’s magisterial Playing the King.
3 This approach is necessarily conjectural. I am here attempting what theatre historians Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume have called “production analysis,” the “interpretation of the text specifically aimed at understanding it as a performance vehicle” (1985, 10). In this type of reading, the excellent reconstruction work of critics such as N.D. Shergold, John Varey, and Ruano de la Haza is indispensable. For La gran Cenobia specifically, Yolanda Novo provides a helpful reconstruction of the staging of the play in “Rasgos escenográficos” [scenographic features] but she does not deal with props in any detailed manner. Although the play was written in 1625, Novo bases her reconstruction on the “escritura didascálica de la primera edición de 1636” [stage directions of the first edition of 1636] (2003, 364) on the assumption that it corresponds to the play’s debut in the corrales and its prompt transfer to the palace.
4 In his study of the play, Frederick de Armas establishes an association between Aureliano’s bestial nature and an imbalance of the humours: “His fiery temperament and his frustrated ambitions, nurtured in the wilderness, have caused an imbalance in his humoral constitution (discrasia)” (1986, 72–3). See also Hollmann, “El retrato del tirano Aurelio en La gran Cenobia,” for a discussion of Aureliano’s character.
5 All quotes are taken from Valbuena Briones’s edition of the play in Primera parte de comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca. When quoting the dialogue, I will indicate verse numbers; for the stage directions, I will use page numbers.
6 Yolanda Novo suggests that the objects were there from the beginning and are “discovered” when the character of Aureliano moves across the stage towards where they are located (2003, 369).
7 For the dates of the play, see the articles by Shergold and Varey, “Some Early Calderón Dates” and “Some Place Performances of Seventeenth-Century Plays.” The play was restaged in the palace as late as the 1680s, after Calderón’s death.
8 It is worth remembering at this point that Philip IV, one of the spectators of this performance in the palace, would become known as “el Rey Planeta” [the Planet King].
9 Perhaps the most studied aspect of the play is the shifting fortunes of the characters. The play, frequently emphasizing the rise and fall of the wheel of Fortune and the allegorical figure of Fortuna, has been associated with the character of Astrea and with Cenobia herself. See Frederick de Armas, A. Valbuena Briones, and Rina Walthaus.
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