2002 Reviews

El mono del desencanto: una critica cultural de la transicion espanola.
Por Teresa Vilarós. Madrid: Siglo xxi, 1998. 285 paginas.

Medina, Alberto

"Perspectivas interlingiies, interartisticas e intextuales" is the title of the final section which deals with translations, the relationships between drama and other art forms, and the influence of earlier Spanish literary works on contemporary theatre. Rick Hite cites Hamlet's "Speak the Speech, I pray you," in advising translators to consider actors and the audience rather than readers and urges us to test our lines on student actors before submitting a text for performance. Timothy Ambrose demonstrates that Rafael Alberti's El hombre deshabitado was a transformation of Calder6n's auto into a vehicle of protest against "traditional Spanish society, theater and religion." At the same time, Alberti sees in the auto form the opportunity to move society toward one which is truly sacred. It is not possible here to analyze every essay in Entre actos, but all of them can be read with profit. The book is free of errata, with very readable print and contains numerous photos of play performances. Halsey and Zatlin are most appropriate as editors since they, along with Patricia O'Connor, constitute the triumvirate (triumfeminate?) which has perhaps done more than any other Americans to advance the cause of Spanish theatre in the United States. With such a great variety of authors, plays and different perspectives, Entre actos should be a useful reference book and point of departure for further studies well into the new century.