Modern Language Studies
Martinez Mediero, Gala, and the Demythification of Spanish History
Author(s): Phyllis Zatlin
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 3-8
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3194788 .
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Martinez Mediero, Gala, and the Demythification
of Spanish History
Phyllis Zatlin
With the long-nmning El bebe furioso (The Furious Baby) in 1974
and Las hermanas de Búfalo Bill (Buffalo Bill's Sisters) the following
season, 1 Manuel Martinez Mediero (b.1939) became the first-and, if one
excludes Francisco Nieva from the group, also the last-of the so-called
underground Spanish playwrights to achieve commercial success on the
Madrid stage. His next three plays, however, failed to attract an
audience, 2 and the previously silenced dramatists once again found that
the doors of the commercial theatres were closed to them. By 1979 a
discouraged Martinez Mediero asserted that it was harder for an avantgarde playwright to be staged in democratic Spain than it had been in the
days of official censorship during the Franco era. 3
The vehicle for Martinez Mediero's retum to the boards after a
five-year absence was not another angry and absurdist allegorical satire of
contemporary society but rather a historical drama that El País critic
Eduardo Haro Tecglen quickly categorized as belonging to the demythifying current of Antonio Gala's Anillos para una darrw (Rings for a Lady,
1973). 4 Mediero's Juana del amor hermoso (Juana of the Beautiful Love)
opened in the Teatro Príncipe in F ebruary 1983 and enjoyed a run of over
200 performances, thus ranking among the most commercially successful
plays of the 1982-83 Madrid season. 5
While Juana's success nevertheless falls far short of that of Anillos,
which remains Gala's greatest stage triumph in spite of his series of
subsequent box office bits, 6 there is little doubt that the appeal of both
plays is based on common factors: (1) an irreverent attitude toward
Spain's official History-spelled with a capital H-including her greatest
heroes and heroines (the Cid in Anillos, the Catholic monarchs F erdinand
and lsabella in Juana), (2) the use of witty dialogue and comic characters
to create the tone of tragicomedy-as opposed to the serious historical
dramas of such contemporary Spanish playwrights as Antonio BueroVallejo and José Martín Recuerda, and (3) an essentially feminist vindication of female protagonists (Jimena in Anillos and Juana, La Loca in
Juana) whose personal freedom and happiness were sacrificed to patriarchal political interests.
Although there are sufficient points of contact between the two
works to justify Haro Tecglen's remark, Martinez Mediero's play differs
considerably from Gala's in structural terms. Anillos para una darrw has a
single stage setting; the action is linear and limited in time. Juana del amor
hermoso, on the other hand, has an episodic structure and moves freely in
time and space, including sorne scenes that represent a reversa} in time.
The same actress plays the protagonist at various stages in her life, ranging
from adolescence to middle-age. One actor doubles in the roles of three of
Juana's guardians, an expressionistic device that reinforces the imprisoned
3
woman's increasing alienation from reality. Queen lsabella's death does
not remove her from the action; she returns to visit the other characters
and offer them advice from her vantage point in heaven. Whether one
views her ghostly appearances as a whimsical introduction of the supernatural, as they tend to be in her scenes with F erdinand and Cardinal
Cisneros, or as the materialization of Juana's hallucinations, the scenes
have no parallel in the somewhat more realistic Anillos para una dama.
Paradoxically, of the two plays Anülos is the less faithful to historical reality. 7 Gala is a historian by training-he holds university degrees in
law, history, and political science-and has used his considerable knowledge of Spanish history in the creation of several series of television plays.
The inspiration for his demythification of the Cid/Jimena story, however,
was contemporary. Surprised by indignant reactions in Spain to Jacqueline Kennedy's second marriage, the author imagined what the response
would have been had the widow of Spain's great epic hero decided u pon
the same course of action. 8 Consistent with Gala's point of reference to the
present, the setting is nonrepresentational, sorne of the costumes are
distinctly modem, and Jimena serves coffee. Juana del amor hermoso, in
spite of a fanciful demythification of historical figures, an understandable
tendency to simplify historical reality, and, like Anillos, a nonrepresentational staging, is essentially a correct recounting of Juana, La Loca's life. 9
Elizabeth S. Rogers, in comparing Anülos to Buero-Vallejo's Penelope/Ulysses play La tejedora de sueños (Eng. trans. The Dream
Weaver), 1952, presents a modem feminist analysis of the role restraints
that prevent the female protagonists from achieving their self-identity. 10
Role restraints also provide the major link between Gala's Jimena and
Martinez Mediero's Juana. In a restricted sense it is a theme that Gala has
developed explicitly in his history plays for television, namely the royal
marriage as a route to female martyrdom. While it is valid to posit a
universal interpretation of the Jimena and Juana stories, and certainly
contemporary audiences will do so, in literal terms both protagonists
belong to the same political!historical tradition as the pathetic Spanish
queens, including Juana, La Loca, who parade across the screen in Gala's
Oratorio de FuenterrabúJ. The first of these, Catherine of Lancaster, states
a typical case. At fourteen she was married to a nine-year old Spanish
prince to bring peace to their two kingdoms. She was a mere object, a
pawn, who never adjusted nor understood. Her heart rotted away from
lack of use. 11 The rebellion of Gala's Jimena and of Juana, La Loca stems
precisely from their desire to follow their heart, to place love above
political expediency.
Gala's Jimena would clearly agree with Gertrude Stein's contention that patriotism is patriarchy is patriotism. Jimena not only explicitly
develops the dichotomy Historia/historia (official History/personal history) or History/Love but also patria/madre. When her son was killed,
she is sure that he called out, not to the "fatherland," but to his mother. 12
For Jimena, "patria" is an empty word. Jimena's cry for personal
freedom-a freedom based on the traditionally feminine principies of
love, nurturing, and peace as opposed toa traditionally masculine concept
of a militaristic patriotism-is one that underscores Gala's theatre in
general.
4
If Anülos para una dama can be placed in any of the categories of
history play outlined by Herbert Lindenberger it is that of martyr play.
Lindenberger, pointing out that over the centuries women protagonists
have predominated in the genre, mentions several hypotheses for the
prevalence of female martyrs. He also notes that martyr plays are quickly
dated because the "particular mode of idealism for which the martyr is
sacrificed" varíes from generation to generationP Jimena's particular
rebellion is clearly rooted in contemporary ideology. Her desire to
achieve self-identity, to break repressive political or social molds, to
reveal the hypocrisy of the Establishment, orto make lave not war can all
be related to idealistic currents of our own time.
Jimena's rebellion is, of course, doomed to failure. The widow of
the Cid will not be allowed to marry for lave. As Lindenberger observes,
there is a natural affinity between conspiracy plays and the role of
martyr. 14 When Jimena attempts to assert her own identity, she is held
under house arrest by the king and finds that her daughter and even her
old nursemaid have joined the conspiracy against her. In the end, she has
no choice but to go off to a permanent imprisonment, carrying with her
the coffin with her husband's cadaver. She accepts this final role courageously, deciding at the fall of Valencia to uphold the myth of the Cid, but
she is non e the less a political prisoner, a martyr whose punishment is not
death but the totalloss of freedom.
Perpetua! imprisonment is also the form of Juana, La Loca's martyrdom. Moreover, although Martinez Mediero makes no mentían of it,
the historical Juana did, in fact, spend years traveling with her husband's
coffin, perhaps more from political astuteness than from the mad lave of
legend. In another parallel between Gala's Jimena and Juana, the conspirators against the latter also include her own child. The attitude of Jimena's daughter, however, is mirrored in 1uana del amor hermoso by Juana's
mother, Queen Isabella. These two women stand in contrast to the two
protagonists through their willingness to put politics and patriotism above
lave. lsabella the Catholic was idealized in Franco's Spain to represent the
perfect wife and mother, her historical roles as active political and military
leader apparently being ignored for this purpose. In Martinez Mediero's
portrayal of her, she does show a maternal concern for Juana. (Significantly Juana, like Jimena's son, calls out for her mother, not for herfather
or the fatherland when she faces her greatest battles.) But, until Isabella
gains new insights from her perspective in heaven, the maternal is always
subordinated to political and religious loyalties. 15 Essentially Martinez
Mediero demythifies her just as Gala debunks the image of the Cid as the
perfect husband and father.
While Gala had to crea te his own story of Jimena's martyrdom, the
historical Juana, La Loca-and her almost half century of incarcerationhas long attracted playwrights. As Martha Halsey notes, the question of
whether or not Juana was really mad has been a "tantalizing enigma" for a
series of nineteenth and twentieth century Spanish dramatists. 16 Recently
she has also been the subject of an opera by Gian Cario Menotti. 17
The evidence indicates that initially Juana was not mad at all. By
declaring her incompetent, her husband, Philip the Handsome, and her
father, Ferdinand the Catholic, followed by her son, Charles V, and her
5
grandson, Philip 11, were able to usurp her power and reign in her stead. In
taking away her freedom, they also deprived her of her rightful name. In
Martinez Mediero's play, Juana críes out passionately that she wants to be
known as Juana of Castile. 18 The title itself makes clear the author's
intention of vindicating his martyred heroine.
In keeping with this intention, Martinez Mediero deemphasizes
Juana's legendary lave for the unfaithful Philip, a lave that allegedly took
the form of jealous rage and even necrophilia. He contrasts the reception
Juana receives from Philip when she makes her two trips to Flanders by
presenting identical voyage scenes. True to historical accounts, the young
bride-to-be finds such an eager fiance that the wedding ceremony has to
be performed at once to keep the young couple from committing a sin.
On her second arrival-some years and severa} children later, following a
separation caused first by Philip leaving her behind in Spain and then by
her parents preventing her from following her husband-Juana finds that
Philip has installed his latest mistress in the palace. Again true to historical
accounts, Martinez Mediero has Juana cut off her rival's hair, but he
portrays her as doing so out of Spanish honor and pride, not from
irrational jealousy. Indeed, she calls Philip a traitor and accuses him of
acting from political interests (], 111).
The "beautifullove" of Martinez Mediero's Juana has a broad and
humanitarian sense as well as a specific one, referring to the passion for
her husband. In contrast to the rigid morality and religious fanaticism of
lsabella and Cisneros-an archbishop portrayed as seeking beatification
while he is still alive-the young Juana is seen as being happy and in lave
with life, including life's earthly pleasures. Instead of concentrating on
learning Latin-the language of the future, according to Isabella's religious advisers (], 75)-Juana secretly learns French, the language not only
of her future husband but of the "sinful" people to the North. In Flanders
she accepts the concept of a God of happiness and forgiveness and the
humanistic philosophy of Erasmus.
Juana's liberal views extend to the política} arena. She explains at
one point that she laves everyone (], 117), and she recommends to her
husband thatthey talk to the people and bring justice to them (], 120). He
calls her mad, but in fact, although Martinez Mediero does not make the
point, the principies Juana enunciates are precisely the ones her mother
followed in establishing a unified Spain. In historical terms, the rebellion
of the comuneros, an unsuccessful popular uprising against Charles V and
his Flemish advisers, could have been avoided had Juana been able to
follow her intuition and her mother's positive model. The form Juana's
loyalty to Spain takes is that of lave, lave for her people.
It is also love, not madness, that prevents Martinez Mediero's Juana
from joining the rebels when they come to liberate her and return her
crown to her. In the final moments of the play, she tells the comunero
leader Padilla that she is incapable of killing and incapable of turning
against her own son (], 143). Reminiscent of Pirandello's Henry IV, Juana
consciously chooses madness as an escape from the materialism of the
"sane" world. Like the martyrs discussed by Lindenberger, the freedom
Juana achieves is an inner one.
6
lf Juana were indeed mad-or mad at the outset-than her long
imprisonment would be justified. Martinez Mediero is careful to make the
audience see her instead as a political prisoner, perhaps driven mad but
certainly quite lucid even after years of confinement. In one powerful
scene, when she realizes that F erdinand intends to lock her up in Tordesillas, she accuses him openly of being corrupted by ambition, a fugitive
from bis own conscience (], 133). Through the ghostly lsabella, indignant
that her widower is remarrying, the audience is indeed informed that
Ferdinand was the model for Machiavelli's prince (], 130). Juana's role as
martyr is further underscored by two parallel scenes, at different points in
time, when she is tortured by her guardians. The suggestion is clear that
she was also subjected to rape.
Juana's liberal politi cal and religious views and her emphasis on
individual freedom and the importance of lave, along with her explicit
criticism of how women are exploited by the patriarchy, not only place
her idealism within a twentieth century framework but also relate her
ideologically to Gala's theatre. Like Gala in Anillos para una dama, Martinez Mediero has chosen the historical martyr play, replete with a surface
level of humor, as a vehicle for bis serious commentary on contemporary
society. The result is an entertaining, thought-provoking work whose
success may be expected to encourage other demythifying plays in the
Galian mode. 19
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
NOTES
l. El bebe furioso ran for more than 250 performances and Las hermanas de
Búfalo Bül for more than 500. The latter was one of only a dozen Spanish
plays-exclusive of musicals, erotic reviews, and light comedies-to exceed
450/500 performances on the Madrid stage in the 1970s. All performance
figures, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from Francisco Alvaro's theatre annual El espectador y la critica.
2. Martinez Mediero's other plays of the 1970s were El día que se descubrió el
pastel, 1976, Mientras la gallina duerme, 1976, and Las planchadoras, 1978.
The least successful of these was Las planchadoras, which did not reach 50
performances.
3. "Encuesta sobre el teatro madrileño de los años 70," Estreno 6.1 (1980), 17.
4. Haro Tecglen, review of Juana del amor hermoso, El País, 17 February
1983, p. 35. One might add that Gala's approach to demythification, particularly given his sparkling wit, is very reminiscent of that of Jean Giraudoux.
5. "Recaudación de los teatros de Madrid," El Público, 1 (October 1983), p. 31.
The only new play by a Spanish author that enjoyed a longer run in the
1982-83 season was Gala's El cementerio de pájaros, which opened in
September and ran for more than 300 performances. (Again 1 am excluding
musicals, reviews, and light comedies.)
6. Anillos para una dama ran for more than 500 performances in 1973-74 and
was awarded seven different prizes as the best play of the year.lt returned
to the Madrid boards in 1974-75 and was staged in Barcelona in fall1975.1t
has been performed in several Spanish American countries and has been
7
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
8
staged in New York by Nuestro Teatro. Gala's subsequent plays, all of them
commercial successes, include lAs cítaras colgadas de los árboles, 1974,
¿Por qué corres, Ulises?, 1975, Petra Regalada, 1980, and La vieja señorita
del Paraiso, 1980.
Herbert Lindenberger in his Historical Drama: The Relation of Literature
and Reality (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1975)
discusses in detail the combination of historical sources and theatrical convention in the creation of historical drama, indicating that audiences have
generally accepted the poetic liberties that dramatists take with historical
reality, particularly when the events are distant in time or space. Spanish
intellectuals, however, may be less flexible in this respect than playgoers in
general. 1 have had a number of Spaniards express concem to me that
Buero-Vallejo changed historical reality in his El sueño de la razón (Eng.
trans. The Sleep of Reason}, 1970, a tragedy based on the life of Francisco
Goya-in spite of the 150 years between the time of the action and the
staging of the play-and 1 have had similar comments made to me about
Martinez Mediero's portrayal of Isabel, la católica.
Personal interview, 3 June 1984.
My principal historical reference is a recent American study: Townsend
Miller, The Castles and the Crown: Spain: 1451-1555 (New York: CowardMcCann, 1963) .lt is not my intention here to presenta detailed comparison
of historical reality and the drama.
Elizabeth S. Rogers, "Role Constraints versus Self-Identity in La tejedora de
sueños and Anillos para una dama," Modem Drama 26.3 (1983), 310-19.
Gala, Oratorio de Fuenterrabw in 4 Conmemoraciones (Madrid: Ediciones
Adra, 1973}, pp. 97-98.
Anillos para una dama in Teatro español1973-1974, ed. F. C. Sainz de
Robles (Madrid: Aguilar, 1975}, p. 202.
Lindenberger, pp. 48-49.
Lindenberger, p. 39.
In the Madrid production the physical contrast between Emma Penella, the
actress who played Isabel, and Lola Herrera, who played Juana, reinforced
the ideological contrast. Penella is a large woman, who presented a
powerful-as well as comic-image of the Catholic queen. Herrera, who
made the transitions between the various ages of the hapless Juana most
effectively, projected inner happiness, turmoil, or strength of character, but
never a domineering, militaristic image.
Martha Halsey, "Juana la Loca in Three Dramas of Tamayo y Baus, Galdós,
and Martín Recuerda," Modem Language Studies 9.1 (1978-79), 47-59. To
her list could be added Ana Diosdado's Los comuneros, 1974.
In the Menotti opera, as performed at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.
C. in June 1984, the lead soprano plays Juana at various ages from adolescence to her death at age 76. The three villains-father, husband, and
son-are all performed by the same tenor. Review by J oseph McLellan, The
Washington Post, 4 June 1984, pp. B1, B4.
Juana del amor hermoso, published with Las bragas perdidas en el tendedero (Madrid: Editorial Fundamentos, 1982}, p. 122. Subsequent references are to this edition and are cited in the text as l.
Gala has frequently stated that the opposite of divertido (entertaining) is not
serious but aburrido (boring).
1 wish to thank the Rutgers University Research Council for its support in
the preparation of the present study.