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Abstract
Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s Las paredes oyen is not an ordinary comedia. Its verses portray the embodied and social experience of disability in seventeenth-century Spain from the insider perspective of a disabled person. The play had a successful eighteen-year run in the Habsburg Court of Philip IV, but, paradoxically, it was never performed as Ruiz de Alarcón originally envisioned. Archival evidence shows that the play’s main character, a man with an undisclosed bodily deformity, was consistently portrayed as bodily normative. The present study delves into the logic behind such an intentional omission, ascribing these attitudes toward the staging of deviant corporealities in leading parts to both the principles of dramatic decorum and theater’s financial reliance on the audiences’ preferences. In addition to inviting playgoers to experience life as a person with a disability vicariously, Ruiz de Alarcón’s ultimate intention in Las paredes oyen is to challenge the way in which non-normative bodies were traditionally represented in Golden Age theater. To convey his message, Ruiz de Alarcón bent the rules of decorum in the characterization of the leading man, a departure from the playwriting conventions of the Arte nuevo that led to a bitter dispute with Lope de Vega.
Notes
1 For a more comprehensive account of the play’s stage production history, see the works of Cotarelo y Mori, Agulló y Cobo, Shergold and Varey, Mérimée, and Rennert.
2 In this essay, I use the term “crip” to refer to both comedias that feature disability as a central theme and disabled characters who are portrayed in a manner that invites the audience to vicariously experience the marginalization associated with their disability. By using this term, I aim to reflect my belief that Las paredes oyen has a distinct agenda, informed by Ruiz de Alarcón’s perspective as a disabled individual, which involves immersing the audience in the experience of disability and the marginalization the playwright faced. The meaning and usage of the term “crip” have been debated within the disability community and disability studies due to its controversial and complex nature. This is largely because the term can be jarring outside of these communities. “Crip,” however, has been used as a term of empowerment and self-identification within the disabled community, particularly when it is being reclaimed in a way similar to how the LGBTQ + community has reclaimed the term “queer.” This use of the term can represent a rejection of able-bodied norms and a reassertion of agency and power by disabled individuals. It can also function as a critical tool for disabled people to challenge ableist language and societal norms, particularly in instances where it is used to challenge the notion that disability is an inherently negative condition that needs to be cured or overcome. Disability scholar Alison Kafer has argued that the term “crip” is intentionally confrontational and disruptive, challenging societal norms and conventions about what is considered “normal” or “deviant” in relation to bodies and minds (15). It is with a similar provocative spirit that I refer to both Las paredes oyen and the character of Don Juan as “crip” in this essay, as they challenge the traditional portrayal of the galán stock character by depicting him as bodily deviant, while also attempting to evoke empathy from the audience.
3 The manuscript’s revisions include the removal of all references to Don Juan’s physical appearance, with the exception of verses 1.1.11-12, which may have been overlooked by the expurgator. Notably, the removed verses are 1.4.195-196, 1.18.942-943, 2.4.1540-1541, and 3.13.2665-2666.
4 The document, entitled Brebe relación de la fiesta que se hiço a SS. MM., martes de Carnestolendas en la noche en el Alcaçar de Madrid en este año de 1623 says: “Hiçose vna comedia de repente de los floridos ynjenios de la Corte, y ynjeniosa y desparatada, mui dibertida. Representaron en ella don Gaspar Bonifaz, conde de Cantillana don Juan y don Cristobal de Gabiria, don Luis (sic) de Alarcon, Luis Belez, Monterrey y otros poetas” (Varey 752).
5 These are the laudatory verses that Lope de Vega wrote in honor of Ruiz de Alarcón:
En México la fama,
que como el sol descubre cuanto mira,
a Don Juan de Alarcón halló, que aspira
con dulce ingenio a la divina rama,
la máxima cumplida
de lo que puede la virtud unida. (El Laurel de Apolo Silva II, 161–66)
6 Between 1630 and 1635, at least four of Ruiz de Alarcón’s comedias were published as Lope de Vega’s. La verdad sospechosa and Los pechos privilegiados found their way into the pages of the Parte veinte y dos de las comedias del Fénix de España Lope de Vega Carpio, printed in Zaragoza by Pedro Vergés’s workshop in 1630, under the names of La verdad sospechosa, y por otro título, El mentiroso, and Nunca mucho costó poco. Ganar amigos, under the title Amor, pleito y desafío, saw at least two editions: one published in Zaragoza in 1633, by Diego Dormer, as part of the Parte veinte y cuatro de las comedias del Fénix de España Lope de Vega Carpio, which also features El examen de maridos under the name Antes que te cases mira lo que haces. A 1635 edition of the text is also included in the Veintidós parte perfeta de las comedias del Fénix de España frey Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, printed in Madrid by Pedro Vergés. Margarita Peña claims that there are two other editions, one in 1630 by Pedro Vergés, and another in 1632 by Diego Dormer (“Relación” 168). Profeti, however, denies the existence of the 1632 edition and believes the copy to be the same as that of 1633 (“Collezione” 39). The 1630 edition by Pedro Vergés does not feature Ganar amigos/Amor, pleito y desafío.
7 Lope de Vega was already a familiar of the Holy Office, as Zamora Lucas documents, by October 21, 1608, when he requested the Supreme Council of the Inquisition to return his play El divino africano to him, which had been seized by the Holy Office “por haber tenido algunos argumentos indecentes para representarse en parte pública” (33–34). The first book Lope approved as a familiar of the Holy Office was Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa’s España defendida, poema heróico, on April 6, 1612. The year he was commissioned to review Ruiz de Alarcón’s Parte primera, Lope had three other assignments: Canciones lúgubres y tristes a la muerte de don Cristóbal de Oñate by Francisco Murcia de la Llana (Madrid, 1622); Rimas by Antonio de Paredes (Córdoba, 1622); and Poema castellano que contiene la vida del bienaventurado San Fructos by Frutos León Tapia (Madrid, 1622). Lope would examine three books a year on average, except from 1624, in which he inspected ten of them (Zamora Lucas 8).
8 The last publishing license, the suma de tasa, was signed by the Royal Secretary Fernando de Vallejo, on July 24, 1622.
9 In a similar vein to my previous use of the term “crip” as a means of self-identification and empowerment within the disabled community, I am also employing the term “fat” as it is used in the fat acceptance movement and fat studies for the same purpose. The fat acceptance movement aims to promote body positivity and challenge weight-based discrimination and prejudice. Within this movement, the term “obese” is frequently considered derogatory as it tends to medicalize weight and wrongly assumes that those who are labeled as such suffer from health problems or are likely to develop them. In her book Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement (2021), author and fat activist Charlotte Cooper puts forth the argument that the term “fat” should be prioritized “over medicalized language (obese, overweight, bariatric), euphemisms (large, big, weight, curvy), terms of endearment (cuddly, big-boned), or other interpretations (of size, thick) because I wish to acknowledge it as a descriptive word, a reclaimed word that contests shame, a political word that expresses power and exposes the limitations of those other linguistic constructions” (1).
10 Evidence suggests that, even though the play enjoyed a second wave of popularity in the 19th century, the character of Don Juan was not played as physically deviant until the 1970’s, when Cuban playwright Eduardo Manet adapted Las paredes oyen into French, L’autre Don Juan (García Piñar, “Irrepresentable” 50–53).
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Pablo García Piñar
Pablo García Piñar is assistant instructional professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. He specializes in premodern disability studies and early modern Spanish literature. He is currently working on a monograph entitled Unfit for Office. Normativity and the Embodiment of State Authority in Early Modern Spain, where he explores body politics and bodily disciplining practices in early modern Iberia.