19 - Comedia Actresses, Then and Now: The Case of Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer

Summary

An actress on the Comedia stage needed more than just a pretty face. Comedia actresses were serious professionals who mastered acting techniques and, because they had to memorize lengthy and complex scripts, learned to read at an early age. Often their roles were physically demanding, requiring them to leap, run, climb, fence, and fly through the air on dangerous stage devices. Then, as now, the actress's body was her instrument. An acting professional of either sex had to remain in excellent condition, as rehearsals and performances could be grueling. As the main draw for many productions, actresses were under particular pressure to stay fit. Because there were few roles for older women (until Moratín began creating them at the end of the eighteenth century), failure to remain youthful and supple could be devastating for an actress's career.

By the seventeenth century, stage movement and gesture were highly codified in Spain. Actors of both sexes were required to learn the gestural language of the stage–movements based on natural or instinctive physical responses but standardized by society and then further refined for theater–in order to bring their characters to life. Furthermore, the two-tier, vertical structure of the corral theater could put serious physical demands on both male and female actors.

Nevertheless, early modern playwrights obviously had confidence in the ability of actresses to meet difficult physical challenges. As a woman herself, Ana Caro knew how capable women could be. Both of Caro's extant plays, El Conde Partinuplés and Valor, agravio y mujer, require exceptional agility and control on the part of not only the lead but also the secondary actresses. In El Conde Partinuplés, actresses must climb high above the stage on tramoyas [stage machinery], soar into the wings, stumble around in the dark, and appear on horseback. Although Valor, agravio y mujer dispenses with stage machinery, the play nevertheless presents physical challenges for both the lead and women in supporting roles.