Hispania. Volume 76, Number 2, May 1993

Only two sets are repeated throughout the play so that in all eleven different settings appear in La cenicienta , in contrast with Benavente's drawing room comedies that require minimal or no set changes.


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Nevertheless, in spite of the increased number, the written text does not suggest the more elaborate sets of the traditional magic play, but rather the generic: Las decoraciones son un derroche de buen gusto, de riqueza y de variedad. Likewise, it reflects his frequent use of the comic structure of classic New Comedy in which the young couples' relationship is initially obstructed by an outside force, in this case Cenicienta's stepmother and stepsisters.

Although the special assistance of a magician as in the traditional comedia de magia , Cenicienta is able to overcome the barrier to her happiness. Although Cenicienta's triumph merely appears recounted in the words of the poet the audience obviously identified with her success through the spectacular effects of the final parade:. El cuadro final produjo efecto extraordinario. Desfila por el pasillo central de butacas una larga y vistosa comitiva, en la que Mesejo [the poet] capitanea una turba de chiquillos enmascarados, y la Cenicienta es conducida en silla de manos, precedida y seguida por buen golpe de gente armada.

As in the French variant of the fairy tale, the old woman whom Cenicienta ingenuously befriends in the woods embodies the aforementioned magical power, suggested from the outset when she advises Cenicienta to remember her: This view of the old woman is reinforced at the end of the first act when special theatrical effects typical of magic plays are indicated by Cenicienta's dialogue: The old woman reappears to assist Cenicienta on two occasions in the play.

The first time she returns, she provides Cenicienta with the dress for the ball. On this occasion Benavente does not take advantage of any theatrical technique to portray the scene nor does he attempt to transform pumpkins and animals into carriages and attendants as in the fairy tale. Instead, the old woman explains through dialogue the magical transformation that has transpired: Benavente's characteristic use of dialogue to narrate potentially dramatic moments that take place offstage instead of the use of elaborate stagecraft to dazzle the audience with occurrences on stage differentiates La cenicienta from the traditional comedia de magia.

The second scene in which the old woman renders Cenicienta assistance receives similar treatment. In eighteenth and nineteenth-century magic plays, the characters' entrances and exits provided playwrights the opportunity to heighten the spectacular effect of their works. However, when Cenicienta calls upon the old woman to help her escape from the cave, the stage directions indicate that the old woman enters naturally Instead of using any special powers, the old woman advises her to search for inner strength: By emphasizing the psychological power of virtue rather than relying on magical feats to free Cenicienta, the old woman's advice adds a moral tone to the scene.

Cuento de Guerra 1ª Parte

In the third cuadro of Act I, for example, Benavente presents the transformation of the Court into dancing monkeys when Fantasia has come to entertain the Prince, recreating the scene in words: Ved ahora a los cortesanos. Gritan y se revuelven como monos. Similarly, without relying on special effects, Fantasia transports the Prince to view Cenicienta in her poverty-stricken condition, indicated by the Prince's question: In spite of these references to rapid shifts in location, the text does not suggest the use of trapdoors or other stage trickery to produce surprising entrances and exits.

Thus, although Benavente's magician figures possess the extraordinary powers of earlier prototypes, he relies on dialogue to convey their prowess even though ironically, more modern technology provided him with greater possibilities.

MARQUINA, Eduardo 1879-1946

The Prince takes a more active role in La cenicienta than in the French or German versions, evident from the outset of the play. In the second cuadro of the prologue, the Prince's emotional state is the central focus as the Court attempts to find a means to distract him.

Although his father believes that his problems result merely from a lack of love, this is only a minor cause of his melancholy. In this way, the repeated references to the Prince's depression introduces a recurring political leitmotiv to Benavente's Cenicienta. Similarly, the Poet's commentaries in a later scene from Act II intensify the socio-political content of the fairy tale.

Throughout the Poet's conversation with the Prince, the Poet stresses royalty's moral obligation to its subjects and advises the Prince not to forget Cenicienta, who represents poverty His final piece of advise for the Prince in which he claims that the people can only approach their rulers in dreams, but that rulers can approach their subjects in reality 72 clearly conveys royalty's underlying obligations to the people, the essence of this magic play.

Consequently, on another level, the marriage of the Prince and Cenicienta, the normal ending in traditional comedy, suggests the marriage or union of the king and his people, adding a serious dimension to Benavente's concept of children's theater. Although Benavente's first attempt at the comedia de magia shares some features of eighteenth and nineteenth-century magic plays in its use of multiple settings and the incorporation of the magician figure, Benavente does not exploit elaborate stagecraft and special effects in order to develop the themes of illusion and reality in his first magic play.

This lack of emphasis on spectacle is the feature that distinguishes it from the traditional comedia de magia. In contrast, however, Y va de cuento Like La cenicienta , Y va de cuento The first scene of the prologue presents the chorus of ragdealers who have collected the waste in the world, all of life's negative experiences.

As they set fire to the rags they have gathered, not only do they refer to the flames in their dialogue, but the stage is also surprisingly enveloped in fire and smoke In addition, Benavente's use of stagecraft serves a theatrical function as it enables the setting to be shifted immediately to the palace where the fairies spin on golden distaffs. Life's experiences are to be purified and then converted into thread for the fairies to weave a magic veil, symbolic of a child's illusions: In comparison to La cenicienta, Y va de cuento The play proper is divided into four acts which follow the exploits of Juanillo, Benavente's Pied Piper, who is transformed from a lazy vagabond to a handsome prince through the power of magic.

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In essence, Y va de cuento The first is Benavente's version of the original Pied Piper of Hamelin which forms the basis of the action of Act II and serves as the impetus for the second plot-line, the classic comic theme of the young couple whose love is deterred by an outside force, in this case, the giant Tragaldabas. Typical of traditional comedias de magia , the power of magic is the underlying element that unifies the two plots. Juanillo's extraordinary powers stem from the flute, a talisman given to him by Luna at the beginning of the play Through his music, he is able to enchant the mice and later the young children of the village.

In this way, under Luna's protection, Juanillo himself becomes the magician figure in Y va de cuento In Act I when Juanillo is abruptly awakened, he characterizes himself as a worthless individual who spends his life trying to avoid work:. El Sol me ha defraudado: When he offers to rid the town of mice, the townspeople mock him because they believe he is just a crazy vagabond Even when Juanillo has accomplished the impossible, they refuse to compensate him for his feat because on the one hand, they do not value his work, and on the other, they do not believe in his magical power.

Thus, he is rejected by society. In contrast in Acts III and IV, Juanillo is not treated as an outcast but rather as a hero in King Innocent's realm, a children's paradise full of illusion, where Juanillo and his followers find themselves after appearing to disappear into thin air. Immediately, upon his arrival, the King's ambassador is sent to welcome Juanillo and to invite him to attend a party because the elderly rulers want to populate their kingdom with younger people In fact, the King hopes his daughter, Flor de Nieve, will marry Juanillo so that his realm can be protected by Juanillo's special powers from the evils of Tragaldabas and his Hombres-fieras, who serve as reminders of man's brutality and of the constant threat to man's innocence.

This change in Juanillo's reception reinforces the contrast between the illusion of King Innocent's world and the reality of the town's life. Only through faith in dreams, does one reach this enchanted world as Juanillo explains to his youthful followers: In essence, this quotation points to the underlying significance of the play. Instead of the socio-political connotations of La cenicienta, Y va de cuento One of the children immediately notices the Biblical overtones of Juanillo's words, and he in turn explains the parallel:.

It is not strange that Benavente's version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin should have such religious connotations, since the comedia de magia is characteristically associated with the religious periods of the theatrical season Caro Baroja The direct Biblical references in the aforementioned scene clearly suggest a religious as well as abstract interpretation of the concept of faith, the common theme of the two plots of Y va de cuento When the townspeople refuse to believe in Juanillo's special power, the town's punishment is the loss of its youth, in other words, the loss of its childlike innocence, its blind faith in dream and illusion as reality.

Likewise, when Juanillo must rescue Flor de Nieve from Tragaldabas and his men, at first he fails because Luna has reclaimed the flute. Temporarily, suffering from the same pride as the townspeople, he himself does not recognize the power of his music: Only when Flor de Nieve and the other captured children demonstrate their faith in magic by pleading with Luna, does she return the flute to Juanillo and give him another opportunity to save the Princess. At this point, the importance of faith is underscored. The flute in itself is of no value; it only acquires its magical powers if Juanillo truly believes in its music.

The moral and ethical tone of Y va de cuento Having sacrificed himself for the common good, Juanillo saves Flor de Nieve and is rewarded by being transformed into the Prince. Thus, the play results in the transformation of Juanillo from an anti-hero to a hero as a result of his belief in the powers of illusion. In addition to the differing function of Juanillo in the development of Y va de cuento For example, it is difficult to imagine how the scene of the mice could be staged according to the written text:.

Esta flauta suena a lo que se desea cuando yo quiero. Juanillo's feats in the rest of the act require fewer special effects and resemble those found in Benavente's first comedia de magia. When the town refuses to compensate him for succeeding in destroying the mice, he paralyzes the old villagers while he entices the young with his music to accompany him as in the folktale Likewise, the scene of their disappearance is related by the crippled young girl through dialogue In the fantastic world of King Innocent, Juanillo continues to perform special feats through the power of his talisman.

Their enactment on stage heightens the spectacle of Y va de cuento For example, through his music, Juanillo heals the lame young girl who has collapsed from exhaustion. Although the recovery of her ability to walk requires no special effects, tricks of stagecraft would be necessary to enable the actress to change costumes as indicated by Benavente's stage directions: De las flores se alza la Cojita, vestida de color de rosa, muy embellecida; ya no cojea In reality, this change is even more difficult to accomplish given the fact that the text only indicates that she is out of sight during two brief lines of dialogue The final scene of the play would be even more challenging for a director to stage and would require even more technical prowess to perform as written.

In this scene, Juanillo has come to liberate Flor de Nieve, but in exchange for Luna's assistance, he has promised to sacrifice his love for the princess and to deliver her to a true prince. As he introduces the latter to Flor de Nieve, Juanillo himself is miraculously transformed into the prince: Although such theatricality is not normally associated with Benavente's works, it is a central feature of the traditional comedia de magia. In part, as a result of Benavente's incorporation of magic in Y va de cuento Likewise, Y va de cuento In addition to the division of the play into a prologue and four acts reflecting potential changes in setting, the prologue and each of the acts are divided into at least two cuadros , totalling nineteen scene changes.

Act III alone is divided into eight cuadros reflecting seven different sets, contributing to the magical spirit of King Innocent's realm. Juanillo's initial introduction to King Innocent's land serves as an excellent example of this technical change, calling for laborers carrying tools adorned with flowers and ribbons, young women carrying baskets of fruit and a flock of lambs with ribbons against a backdrop of playlike houses with trees and flowers with a rose colored sky in order to convey a fantastic world filled with happiness In addition, the changes between scenes on occasion are more theatrical in nature.

In Act II, when Juanillo's music entices all the youth to abandon the town, a dark cloud enveloping the set serves as the transition between cuadros two and three We have already discussed the very dramatic use of fire in the transition between the two cuadros of the prologue.

Acknowledging the lack of depth of such historical dramas, and recognizing the public's unenthusiastic response to the verse drama form, Marquina authored several prose plays set in contemporary Spain, and also traveled to Latin America in in the company of the touring Guerrero-Mendoza troupe.

Although these plays met with a relatively positive reception, the prose style did not suit Marquina, and by the s he had began to once again pen verse dramas.


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Unlike his previous works of this type, he now focused on glorifying the lives of the rural poor in such plays as El pobrecito carpintero and La ermita, la fuente y el. However, an increasingly conservative Marquina's first religious-themed play, El monje blanco, premiered in Madrid in and marked the beginning of what many critics have viewed as the final phase of his writing career. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in and Generalissimo Francisco Franco began—with the help of fellow European dictators Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini —his three-year military push to become dictator of all Spain, Marquina was out of the country on a tour of Latin America with his theatre associates.

Because of the playwright's known anti-communist sympathies, Marquina's wife and son were forced to go in to hiding and left Spain to join Marquina in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While in Buenos Aires the playwright began work on La Santa Hermandad, a play with strong Nationalist undertones that draws connections between the glorious reign of Ferdinand and Isabella and the events of the Spanish Civil War then underway. Disappointed in the "simplistic" resolution of the conflict between the two brothers, De la Nuez nonetheless noted that the playwright's "inherent human goodness manifests itself clearly" in La Santa Hermandad: In the Marquina family returned to Spain and settled in Seville because, unlike Madrid, that city was under the protection of Nationalist Movement forces.

Due to his extended stay away from Spain, the ongoing political disruption, and because of his increasing participation in the activities of Spain's literary elite, Marquina found his play production declining during the s and s. Interestingly, Maria la viuda, which premiered in , is considered by many critics to be his best play, due to its well-rounded portrayal of strong, realistic female characters.

While traveling in Central and North America in the fall of as a representative of Spain's literary community, the playwright suffered a series of heart attacks. He died in New York City in November, at the age of sixty-seven. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

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Home Arts Educational magazines Marquina, Eduardo Print this article Print all entries for this topic Cite this article. Poet, playwright, and translator. Emporium, music by Enrique Morera, F. Las cartas de la monja also see below , produced in Madrid, Spain, El antifaz, produced in Madrid, Spain, La muerte en Alba also see below , produced in Madrid, Spain, Cantiga de serrana anthology , Hispania Madrid, Spain , Alondra, produced in Madrid, Spain, Dondiego de Noche, produced in Madrid, Spain, Ebora, produced in Madrid, Spain, Los que dios non perdona, produced in Madrid, Spain, La caravana short stories , R.

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