The comic adaptation of La vida es sueño by Calderón de la Barca (2018) emphasizes the emotion of anger as one of the forces that guides the plot. The protagonist, Segismundo, displays aggression through two main gestures: the clenching fist and the frown on his face. This article aims to answer the following questions: Why did the comic artist d…[Read more]

This article examines how Thomas Hughes’s “The Misfortunes of Arthur” pays homage to Elizabeth I through its eclectic use of Arthurian traditions and deployment of imagery centered on corrupted sexuality and the body politic.

Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy creates a subtle apologia for the “middling sort” by challenging the socially constructed predicates of aristocratic privilege. A scrivener’s son, Kyd undertsood oeconomia, or household management, as both the means for material advancement among the “middling sort” and a potential threat to aristocratic insular…[Read more]

Examines Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and the epistemological challenges of differentiating twins in light of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, specifically his theories of substance and individuation.

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur’s walls, and his St. Crispin’s Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine themselves in the future, understanding the present as part of their own history. Hen…[Read more]

This study presents a reconstruction of the performance of the melancholic character in Golden Age theater. It argues that critics have overlooked the way this character type was acted on the original stage. Using Lope’s El Príncipe melancólico [The Melancholic Prince] as a case-study to speculate on the actor’s paralinguistic gestures and movem…[Read more]

The CNTC’s 2017 production of La dama duende presented the transition between the two main characters’ rooms in the third jornada using two illuminated windows at the rear wall of the stage. The comparison between this rendition and other modern productions reveals two problems in adaptation: the fidelity with the original and the und…[Read more]

The horror of the situation at the center of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis has historically prompted a myriad of attempts to reconcile the apparently sadistic demands of God with normal human sensibilities. The tension–both in the story itself and in critical reactions to the story–is inherently dramatic, but the…[Read more]

This article examines The Tempest in light of artists’ renderings of the play in New Orleans, reflecting on anti-Black racism in Shakespeare’s play and in the Deep South.

Jean de la Taille’s ‘The Famine’ (1573), like the author’s slightly earlier ‘Saul in his Madness’ (1572) is a dramatization of events narrated or mentioned in the biblical Books of Samuel, augmented by excerpts from Josephus’ ‘Antiquities’. This English translation of ‘La Famine’ is based principally on the edition prepared by Kathleen M. Hall…[Read more]

This article explores how certain dramatists in early modern England and in Spain, specifically Ben Jonson and Miguel de Cervantes (with much more emphasis on the former), pursued authority over texts by claiming as their own a new realm which had not been available – or, more accurately, as prominently available – to playwrights before: the sta…[Read more]

Comparative studies have revealed uncanny similarities between the theatrical cultures of Shakespearean England and Golden Age Spain, and in particular between the Elizabethan amphitheaters and the Spanish corrales de comedia (courtyard playhouses). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Spain’s (and, in particular, Madrid’s) courtyard the…[Read more]

Going to the theater was one of the most distinctive-as well as conspicuous-cultural activities to take place regularly in early modern european cities. Precisely because so many people from all walks of life partook of this highly visible pastime, public theaters became spaces wherein social and cultural boundaries between spectators were easily…[Read more]

This article explores the change in dynamics between matter and style in Shakespeare’s way of depicting distress on the early modern stage. During his early years as a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote plays filled with violence and death, but language did not lose its composure at the sight of blood and destruction; it kept on marching to the beat o…[Read more]

One of the major differences between the otherwise very similar commercial theatrical cultures of early modern Spain and England was that, whereas in England female roles were performed by young, cross-dressed boys, in Spain female performers were prominent in their industry. indeed, actresses in Spain played an active role in the creative process…[Read more]

Jean de la Taille’s “Saül le furieux” (1562) has been described as “the most dramatic play produced by the French Renaissance,” and the author’s preface to the play in the printed edition of 1572, “De l’Art de la Tragedie,” as “certainly the best theoretical essay on the theatre written in France before the classical period.” These estimates by…[Read more]