[Applause]
[Silence]
I've put the one on the desk, I promise, I promise.
[Silence]
Guillermo, I'm going to you.
[Silence]
Did you tell them to put up the flags?
Yes, yes, yes.
Do you want one?
No, it's not necessary. You play.
I have a wink, so you... Not me, Victor.
Who is Victor?
Victor, the boy who is next to José.
The second one, okay.
The second one.
Victor, Victor.
He's going to warn you.
[Silence]
Well, to finish, next Sergio Adillo,
Professor of the Department of Spanish
Literature and Theory of Literature,
who is a researcher, actor and director,
as well as a specialist in stage play of classical theater,
today he presents us "The Dolls",
they go to the portal "Animated Forms in
the Traditions for Christmas Theatres".
[Silence]
Thank you very much, Irene, for the presentation and for the invitation.
And, well, I dedicate myself to work on theater of the Golden Century.
Today I'm going to talk about theater of objects, of animated forms,
which is how it is usually spoken in general,
to refer to puppets, the guiñol, the puppets, etc., etc.
And I'm going to try to unravel what relationship those objects have
with theatrical or paratheatrical traditions at Christmas.
At these parties in which the puppets invade us,
sometimes they even assault our houses,
like these Santa Claus or the Wise Men,
that we find more and more frequently,
the first thing I wanted to raise is, well,
this terminological problem we have with animated forms.
Many people ask us, those of us who
dedicate ourselves to the study of puppets,
"But what's the difference between a
puppet, a puppet, a guiñol, etc., etc.?
" Well, today I'm going to talk about some of these things.
We're going to talk about objects, which are
the actors of that theater or that paratheater,
puppets, puppets, dolls, figures, machines,
and the stage space, which is not the theater we're used to,
but it's a stage, a machine, a totilimundi, a little theater.
These are the words we're going to use in this presentation.
Of course, when Irene proposed I participate in this,
the first thing that came to my mind
was the etymology of the word "puppet".
"Puppet" is the French term, the Spanish term,
to refer to these anthropomorphic objects
with which we perform theater, it's puppets.
But "puppet", the origin of the French word,
is a double diminutive from the word "Marie".
What did these first puppets refer to around the 13th century in France?
To some machines, of which we also have some representations in Spain.
In this case, for example, this is the Virgin of the Kings in Seville,
obviously with all the Baroque apparatus, but
it's a gothic virgin from a French school,
to which, if you look at the photos that are further away,
it's an articulated virgin, an articulated and also automatic virgin,
which in certain ceremonies is no longer
used like this, could get up and bless.
Well, this has a lot to do with the origin of puppets.
The machines already existed in Alexandria, they
arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in two ways,
one is that I tell you, through France,
but they had also arrived in Spain through the Arab world.
Returning to the Christmas traditions,
obviously, Maria has something to say about the Christmas traditions,
but let's go to the question of mystery.
The figures, many times it is also spoken
in the Baroque of "theatre of figures"
to refer to the theatre of puppets.
The figures are also the figures of birth.
Well, now that we visit Bethlehem everywhere,
we are tired of hearing that the birth, the figures
of birth, are a tradition of Franciscan origin,
that Saint Francis created a first manger in which,
interestingly, there was no figure, there was
a mule and a ox and the bird where Christ
was, but people had to imagine the rest.
And little by little these first births were developed,
which included only the mystery.
We cannot yet speak of the mules, as we will see shortly,
but only of these mysteries, of these births,
formed by a few figures that, unlike the figures,
that is, the representations of this
mystery in the altarpieces of the churches, were exempt figures.
So, here we are already facing a certain paratheatrality
in the sense that they are figures that
can be arranged in a different way.
This is probably one of the first mystery or
birth of exempt figures that is preserved, which is found in Rome.
And this tradition of building figurines to create this mobile birth
began to develop in Italy and through Italy,
and specifically through Naples, because of the
historical relationship it had with the Crown of Aragon,
and it reached Spain.
This is one of the oldest of the Vellums, the Vellum of La Sagne,
in which Mallorca is found.
Of course, Mallorca was a stop for the ships that came,
that travelled from Naples to Valencia.
It seems that a merchant transported these figures,
there was a shipwreck, and he left them as a spare part for a monastery.
But we are talking about this period, right?
We are also curiously talking about these
builders, Pietro and Giovanni Alamano,
who with this name already indicated to us that,
interestingly, although they were based in Naples,
they were not Neapolitan but of Germanic origin.
Well, of course, the Vellums have a certain paratheatrical form,
because it is true that the figures can move,
but I am interested in bringing to the
table the relationship that is established
in these first representations,
which in addition to many of them have to do
with the liturgy or the Franciscan context,
in particular, here we are faced with a text by Gil Vicente
which was represented in a monastery of
Clarissa, you can see it there, right?
It says "In the following work was represented
a monastery of Ensobregas on Christmas morning".
The Ensobregas Monastery is now the Museum of the Azulejo in Lisbon
and it was a monastery of Clarissa where Queen Leonor was,
for which Gil Vicente wrote this car of the Sibyl Cassandra,
which is part of the Ordo Prophetarum,
but already in a more courtesan tradition,
to which Mario has referred before, that tradition of the Sibyls,
also the tradition of the worship of the shepherds,
because Cassandra in this work is a
shepherdess who later turns out to be a Sibyl,
who says that she is going to be, as she is Sibyl,
she has seen herself, she does not want to get married
because she wants to be the mother of God,
because as she has seen that a woman who does
not know a man is going to be the mother of God,
she has decided that she is going to be.
Then the other Sibyls deceive her and say "Shut up, crazy woman",
and they say "No, no, no, we are going to worship at birth".
And curiously, in this work, what happens is that at a certain moment,
as the quotation puts here, it does not say
"Open the curtains where the whole apparatus of birth is".
The curtains are opened, the birth appears,
and a birth would probably appear similar
to this one that we have seen in Mallorca.
Well, we continue to see the relationship between puppets,
Christmas and the religious origin of these puppets.
We have talked about the figures, the actors,
and now we are going to talk about the stage space, the stage.
The Dictionary of Covarrubias, apart from
the definition that we know as a stage,
the stage in a church, says that also some foreigners,
probably Italians, usually bring a box of puppets
that represents some sacred history, and from
there they were given the name of "stage".
Curiously, in the Slavic field, both in Ukraine and in Slovakia,
in Poland, there are these theatres that, if
you look closely, always have several floors.
On the upper floor, there we have the
Virgin Mary in a scene of the Annunciation,
one of them, and on the lower floor we have the folkloric scenes,
which is a constant with which we are going to meet right away
and which has to do with this tradition of "lo ficium pastorum",
which was this… we have the "ordo prophetarum", the "sibila",
but on the other hand, the worship of the pastors,
which obviously is very easy to imagine, not some pastors from Belen,
but some Spanish pastors who speak Sallagues, etc., etc.
From there we go, well, I have here some images of the altarpieces,
of the altarpiece of Maestro Pedro de Cervantes,
Cervantes also has the interlude of the altarpiece of Las Maravillas,
they are all recorded quite later than Cervantes and foreign,
so we do not exactly know what the altarpieces
were like to which Cervantes was referring.
What we do know is that in Castile, from the 17th century,
there is a tradition called the "real
machine", I'm going to take this over here,
and I'm going to show you a reconstruction,
they are large puppets,
and if you look, they are puppets moved by a rod,
they are puppets, this has been able to be reconstructed,
this is a contemporary reconstruction
of a company called the "real machine",
as the name that was given to it at that
time, in the 16th and 17th centuries,
sorry, 17th and 18th, and it is documented not
only in Spain, but also throughout Spanish America,
and if you look, they are rod puppets,
which have two types of manipulation,
some are manipulated with a rod that goes
to the head, from the bridge, from above,
and others are manipulated with a rod that is placed behind the puppet,
and they are "peana" puppets, which are manipulated from below.
These in particular, you see, are the puppets manipulated from above,
and this "real machine" offered the advantage
that it allowed to make puppetry representations,
that is, to make representations in the comedy corrals
where the innovations that were only seen
in the court theater began to be introduced,
the decorations, the perspective, etc.
, all inventions that also came from the Italian court theater.
The puppets were also used especially in the Quaresma,
because it was a time when it was forbidden to represent the actors,
and then, of course, the actors had to live from something,
and in those 40 days that went between Wednesday of Ash Wednesday
and Sunday of Resurrection, comedies were represented,
which again used to be comedies of saints.
Here, if you look, this is one of the typical
artifacts of this type of comedy with puppets,
which is that fire and special effects were used,
which allowed to do things that in a comedy corral,
with the few technical means that were available, were not possible.
Besides, those comedies of saints usually included scenes of martyrdom,
cutting arms, beheading, and activities that the actors of Carnivuso
do not usually enjoy in a very pleasant way.
I am now going to talk about some popular theatrical
traditions, many of which have come to our days,
in the peninsular context,
and which have their origin, or at least have points in common,
with three issues.
One of them is this real machine,
which I already told you has been reconstructed from documentation
that remains in the book of accounts of the comedy corrals, for example.
Another is the tradition of these Neapolitan pessevers.
Here we have the Neapolitan prince's veil,
which can be seen in the Royal Palace,
where the mystery, which was the original
scene, the Virgin, the Child, the Kings,
of course the Mule and the ox, who were the first to arrive,
and the Kings, are added to the 18th-century Neapolitan costume scenes.
This tradition has reached Spain.
We have a multitude of figures,
we have costume scenes,
and we have one more element that also has to do
with this costume, which are the titilimundis,
which really seems to be a corruption of the Italian tutilimundi.
It is a small representation of all possible worlds,
through which one could see different costume scenes,
where some machines moved and represented those scenes.
From there we have all the popular theatrical traditions
that have been preserved to this day,
and almost all of them date from the
18th century or the early 19th century.
In this case, this is the articulated veil of the
Guardia, in which the Virgin kisses the Rioja.
If you look closely, we have once again the sacred and the profane.
Here we have a dance of these,
with their sweets and their things.
This representation, interestingly, is
one of the few that remains in a church.
Mario was telling us before how these representations,
from the Council of Trento and many
cathedral synods, began to leave churches.
But I hold the theory that this one has probably remained,
because as they are not figures of flesh and blood, but rather puppets,
they are less at risk of being swept
away than the actors of flesh and blood.
Although there are some gentlemen below manipulating.
And we have once again here the manipulation of the puppet puppets,
which are being manipulated from below.
Let's see if I can go over.
I'm going to see a little something here.
I'm going to show you just one thing that is interesting,
which is this final scene of the flight to Egypt.
And the Roman soldiers,
which Marina was telling us about,
who appear here in a curious format.
Well, once again, the fire.
It seems that the puppets of the royal machine caused quite a few fires
or stampings in the baroque corrals and coliseums.
And if you look closely, here we have a magician king,
but the Roman soldiers behind him are a different
type of puppet that we have not seen yet.
It is a type of puppet in a flat figure that will appear shortly.
And once again, the folk music mixed with the sacred tradition.
So, with this amalgam of the royal machine,
this type of manipulation of puppets,
which were also built by the same puppeteers,
because they were wood-carved puppets, articulated,
like many of the figures of Holy Week that we have right now to dress.
They were stucco and polychrome puppets,
so the manufacturers were the same.
These Neapolitan pesebres with their customary scenes
and this influence also of the totilimundis or titilimundis,
we find several traditions that have survived to this day
and where, on the one hand, the traditional folklore
and the religious Christmas content are mixed.
One of them is this "Velen del Tirisiti",
which is preserved right now, alive in alcove.
Once again, you see the manipulation
with the puppets underneath the stage.
And we are going to hear a very curious thing here.
If you look closely...
In this case, the curious thing is that we mix, on the one hand,
the technique of the narrator, which is the
one we find in the "Velen de la Guardia",
with scenes, this narrator, in the
case of the alcove, speaks in Spanish,
and the folkloric scenes, where in this case we are mixing
the traditional scene with the religious one.
There is Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary looking for an alcove,
and the alcove is this man called Tirisiti,
who is said to be called that, first, by the name of the puppet,
but it is because his wife is called Teresita or Tereseta in Valencian,
and then with the tongue the only thing that
is understood is Tirisiti when he speaks.
Then we have this other tradition in
Portugal, already in a totally rural area.
I'm going to put it on because this representation fascinates me.
They are much smaller puppets, very similar to those of the real machine
and the Sicilian puppets, but the Sicilian puppets have dolls
up to a meter or more, in wood, with a rod.
But this is a miniature representation.
They are the Bunecus de Santo Aleixo, in the region of Alentejo,
in the centre of Portugal, and here we have
a scene, which is the dance of the Angelitos,
and specifically within the representation
of the car of the birth of a baby Jesus.
Folkloric music once again.
They are puppets manipulated with very small rods.
And a relationship that these puppets have with the real machine is,
if you look closely, you see some
threads that are in front of the screen,
which work as a fourth wall, but for what they were used,
for what they are used today in the Bunecus de Santo Aleixo
and for what they were used in the Baroque puppets of the real machine,
those threads were for all the effects that were made with fire
so that they did not pass on to the public.
Because whenever a spark jumped, well, there is, in fact,
a documentation of a representation in a comedy corral,
sorry, in the Coliseum of Seville, where many women died
because apparently a spark jumped and one of them said,
"The corral is burning", and then, of course,
as they were in the pot so tight, there was a swing and, well,
the Portuguese continue to use this
technique because they are illuminated
with oil candles and, in particular, this dance of the "Anginus"
is also done with candles.
Another tradition linked to Christmas and of a very popular character
is this car of Christmas, the "Ainetes de la Tia Norica",
where we find, on the one hand, with costume scenes,
just as they appeared in the "Coy", recognizable scenarios appear
for the community, right?
Here we have, you see, the Cathedral of Cádiz in the background,
the "Tia Norica" with... let a bull catch her.
This bull thing is, for me, very
significant of the relationship there is,
well, apart from, obviously, that it is part of Iberian folklore,
of the relationship there is with these Baroque representations
of the real machine, because one of the great numbers
of the puppet theatre of the 17th and 18th centuries was the bullfight.
Obviously, in a comedy corral you couldn't see a bullfight.
If you go to the "Magro" you will realize that there is a bull
and, well, it is very easy for the bull to fall on the stage,
but, of course, seeing this represented
with puppets was super spectacular.
So, here we have these religious scenes, in this case the Annunciation,
mixed with costume scenes from Gaditanian folklore.
A Nazarene appears, the Tia Norica appears with her grandson,
and the curious thing about the puppets of the Tia Norica is that, well,
we have, you see, manipulation of the peana from below with rods
and the manipulation of the puppets, which at first seemed to be,
historically, also to be done with rods,
when they were manipulated from above, from the bridge.
At some point, between the end of the 19th
century and the beginning of the 20th,
it was changed to be done with thread, which is a technique
that is not, let's say, the Castilian or Italian indigenous technique.
Of these traditional representations,
Lorca and Falla and Hermenegildo Lanz,
who was a scenographer who worked with them,
from this substrate they created, on a single occasion,
this theatre of art, a theatre that was made on a single occasion,
on the day of the kings of 1923, and where, in a session,
just as in these shows the popular, the folkloric and the religious
were mixed, they represented, on the one hand,
the representations of Christ the Vita and of Andalusian folk tales,
with the first, let's say, historicist representation
of the "Car of the Wise Men", which they
called "The Mystery of the Wise Men",
and what you see in this document is the programme of hand
of this invitation that was distributed among the families present,
and some photographs and figures of which they manipulated.
For this representation, for the "Mystery of the Wise Men",
flat figures were used, these are flat figures,
they are the puppet as you see it,
they were also manipulated from below.
And the interesting thing from the point
of view of philology and musicology,
also in these sessions, is that not only was there an attempt
to rescue the medieval theatre for the first time,
but also an attempt to rescue medieval music.
Falla, it is also impossible not to think of Falla as a Gaditan person
who had grown up in Cádiz, who had seen the representations
of the Tía Norica, with which that popular substrate was there,
but there was also a cult substrate that, on the one hand,
was to reclaim the musical and theatrical heritage
in which they were investigating at that time,
and on the other hand, also the avant-garde and contemporary aesthetics.
In this session, at the same time as medieval music,
I think Stravinsky's music could be heard in his Spanish premiere.
But we have made a journey through these animated figures
with symbolic content, with religious content,
through figures that, coming from the religious sphere,
become an element of entertainment in the Baroque,
an element that is also identitary, with the question
that is added to it in the costume representations,
and from there, since the middle of the 19th century,
with the arrival of capitalism and consumerism,
obviously puppets will continue to be present at Christmas,
in this case, in these vending machines that appear in the shop windows,
in the shelves of the large shopping centres.
These are those of Galéry Lafayette in
Paris, but you all surely know this one,
which is the Hispanic version of the fineness of the French shop windows,
where we also find that the puppets become advertising.
So, I just wanted to say goodbye to you with this reflection
on how we have allowed the puppets, this sacred object,
which has become a customary element in the people,
to suddenly be put at the service of consumer society
and to have gotten as deep into us as the song of the Sibyl,
but with a slightly more profane song,
which I ask you to join if you feel like it, to finish this session.
You can sing!