Sobre el Tablado Moves Oaxacan Audiences with Three Plays

By Myra Heideman
This year the Cuauhpanco troupe celebrates its tenth anniversary, and during the months of October and November rejoiced the landmark with three plays in different Oaxacan venues. Night after night they came to the Macedonia Alcalá Theater with an amazing performance of Don Juan Tenorio acted completely in verse; the Andrés Henestrosa Library was converted into the La Mancha countryside for Yo Soy Quijote; and in Llano Park a Oaxacan legend was relived…Un Cuento de Miedo para Cata. “Sobre el Tablado” is the Nahuatl name of this theater troupe. All the works were from the Golden Age of Spain, the 16th and 17th centuries.

“The language of the playwright masters like Lope Rueda, Lope Vega, Tirso de Molina and Cervantes is beautiful, but not easily comprehended because it’s in verse. It must be a very well written play and well acted for people to understand. They are village themes set in the Spanish countryside of the 16th and 17th centuries inhabited by villains, noblemen, those who had it and lost it all, and the ladies and gentlemen from the city. But the subject matter, with which people of both town and city, and from the 16th to the 21st century can identify, is universal: love, betrayal and revenge.” This is what fascinates one of the actors, Carlos Cruz, with the playwrights of the era. He and Wagive Jimenez studied Theater of the Golden Age at UNAM (University of the Americas) after having already acted in a number of plays with the Cuauhpanco troupe. About two years ago they also began directing themselves. One of their professors was Oscar Ulises, who did adaptations of Los Habladores and of La Guarda Cuidadosa. Now the troupe is working on such interludes of Cervantes scheduled to premier next February.

In the Middle Ages these interludes, or short stories, were the main course on a real life table accompanied by the written stanza. In the Age of Cervantes the one act farce was the tempting bite and the interlude the theatrical piece. Their totality provided a connection between the concerns, worries and difficulties of the times, and ideas and beliefs. Bureaucracy, corruption of those in authority, interference of the church are all treatises of a satiric style, sublimely crossing over to a subtle irony.

This kind of theater has not come to Oaxaca before, or at least it’s been years since it’s been witnessed, having disappeared into obscurity. Cuauhpanco wants the Oaxacan public to become fond of the Spanish theater with a view to people reading more and becoming more interested. They want good poetry, theater and drama all to become established in Oaxaca. In 2002 Los Pasos of Lope de Rueda arrived on the scene, quietly bringing its agenda of the Golden Age of Spain to 21st century Oaxaca. It’s short, racy theater that was enthusiastically received by those in attendance.

For the worldwide celebration of the 400th year since the publication of Don Quijote de la Mancha, the director of the work Carlos Cruz decided to re-release Yo Soy Quijote. They are performed as chapters in a novel in mosaic form. It’s not an Aristotelian work, that is to say it lacks the chronology…each is a distinct episode unto itself. The actors breathe life into eight characters including Sancho Panza, Amadis de Gaula, Sansón Garasco and the neice of Don Quijote. The knight errant Quijote, armed with sword, confronts mills that he thinks are giants which want to defeat him. Ingenious marionettes which live in the Altarpiece of Master Pedro also appear, while in other scenes we are able to see how doña Melicendra, wife of Prince Gaitero, is seduced by an African Moor.

But it’s not only the Spanish works that take to the stage. Unassuming works based on Oaxacan legends also find their place: Un Cuento de Miedo para Cata, directed by Wagive Jiménez. It’s a collection of three short stories: one is about a cheating rabbit which borrows money from everyone but never pays it back; the second tells of why the jaguar turned pinto; and the last one is the story of Matlasihua, a woman who offers herself to men, only drunk men.

Children are left marveling at the whimsical legends from their own homeland. Many aren’t aware of these short stories and folklore from their villages, television and the computer having replaced oral literary tradition. With the presentation of some Oaxacan myths and legends, the actors hope that the children will become interested in their rich culture and begin or continue to read and tell them.

The National Jacaranda Prize for children’s direction and drama for the play Un Cuento de Miedo para Cata was a nice anniversary gift. But the best gift is always a full venue seated with faces enchanted with what they see.