said the actor Arturo Querejetathe last great Pedro Crespo on stage, protagonist of The Mayor of Zalamea premiered last Thursday at the Teatros del Canal, that this work by Calderon of the Boat It is “a dramatic cathedral,” he said at the Casa de Lope de Vega on Cervantes Street in Madrid, where part of the cast participated in the presentation of the new production together with its director, Jose Luis Alonso de Santos.
Querejeta accurately evoked in his lyrics the reflections on Calderón written by Antonio Machado in your Mairena posthumousand who published the magazine Spanish time in November 1938, a dark period of destruction, of a duel to the death between two Spains at the expense of the same people as always.
This is how Machado spoke then of the author of life is a dream:
“From the Spanish literary Baroque – Juan de Mairena said to his students – the cathedral, of pure Jesuit style, you will perhaps find it in the theater of Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, of the most Calderonian Calderón, who is not, in my opinion, both successor of Lope and definitive architect in our letters of gold. As a play, there is perhaps nothing more solid in our words than a comedy by Calderón.
This reflection by Machado on Calderón explains, in my humble opinion, since I do not want to pretend to be a theater critic, the way in which José Luis Alonso de Santos introduces the spectator into this cathedral of universal letters, as into a harmonious space where the fluidity of the plot, the authenticity of the characters, the agility of the dialogues and, above all, the freshness of the best Castilian that can ever be spoken are balanced.
In Calderón’s work, each character explains himself and in relation to the others, like a constellation. Thus, the challenges discussed between Pedro Crespo and Don Lope de Figueroawith the gigantic Arturo Querejeta and Daniel Albaladejodepict the respective modes of authority, and therefore of justice, that they embody.
The same thing happens with the malicious connivance between Captain Don Álvaro de Ataide and his sergeant, with perfect complicity between Javier Lara And French Cantos; or with the lively love of Rebolledo and La Chispa, who Jorge Basanta And Isabelle Rodes they make it authentic.
In my opinion, justice, above honor, is the great theme represented in this literary cathedral that Alonso de Santos illuminated with reverent respect for the author and also for the spectator. The director managed to involve the audience in a vibrant theatrical float and to move them thanks to the extravagance of all the actors and an intentional staging.
Thus, the public is confronted with two scenarios, designed by Ricardo Sanchez Cuerda with great plastic and technical imagination. Both describe the context of opposing forces in the plot. One is the forest, a space of arbitrariness, evil and violence, where Don Álvaro rapes Isabel, the daughter of Pedro Crespo, played with pure dramatic force by Adriana Ubani.
The other area is that of the town of Zalamea, opposite the Crespo house, a place of peace, order and law, in which the mayor’s justice will seek to restore the rule of law and with it the balance violated by the captain of the Old Third of Flanders.
In both spaces, Alonso de Santos makes a ringing of bells resonate that adds a metaphorical note on the transcendent meaning of existence, with the call to account for each person’s actions before a higher authority, which in Calderon’s drama can be God, human justice or one’s own honor.
But what falls to Pedro Crespo, after taking the oath as mayor, is to deliver justice. Calderón unequivocally reveals a conception of justice as a force of legitimizing authority, capable of guaranteeing the unity and coexistence of those who are different. This is what Crespo affirms in his eulogy to King Philip II when he finally accepts his sentence as mayor against the captain: “You alone have Justice / as much as you have known how to honor.”
To be scandalized by the fact that Alonso de Santos highlighted the relevance of Calderon’s message is to grant his performance the status of a subversive act, which can only be considered with happiness, because it must have been the case in his time too, given his denunciation of the privileges of those who enjoyed certain statuses.
Yeah The Mayor of Zalamea contains a message of denunciation against the abuse of power, against the violation of the laws that we have all given ourselves and against those who, with their authority, not only pursue these abuses, but legitimize them, this would mean that the authors of our Golden Age They are more exciting and incisive than ever.
Machado already said it in his Mairena posthumous that we cited, when he recognized, more than eighty years ago, the full relevance of another work by Calderón, The Constant Prince: “A great theatrical fire, certainly, but in which – as a coplero said – hides a real ember, which we can still apply to our sardine.”
Alonso de Santos followed the lesson of the great poet and placed his sardine near the real embers of The Mayor of Zalamea claim the defense of the principles and values that brought us here, and in which we can and must all recognize ourselves to continue living together. And do it also freely and without fear, that is what really matters in this new hour of Machadon in Spain.
The opening of the season of the Teatros del Canal with this stage symphony conducted by a personality of our theatre as important as José Luis Alonso de Santos, is part of the commitment of the president Isabel Diaz Ayuso and of Mariano de PaçoMinister of Culture and a man of the theatre above all, for having declared the Golden Age as Property of cultural interest and strengthen its diffusion in the Community of Madrid. This first is a step in this good direction, and others are to come.
