though she no longer trod the boards, she socialized with actors and had strong opinions about their performances. She was often as caustic as the mosqueteros.
The first play she took me to was an eye-opener. Mateo had taught me that the best position for a corral de comedias was in a vacant area enclosed by two or three houses, which approximated the corral's layout. In Seville, theaters had the same posture, but were much more elaborate. Positioned between two long houses, the elevated stage was covered by a canvas awning attached to the roofs of the two buildings. In front of the stage was a benched seating area called the banco. Behind the banco was the patio, more commonly called the pit. In this area the common men, such as the butchers and bakers, stood. In the pit, of course, were the dreaded mosqueteros, whose whistles, hoots, thrown garbage, and drawn swords could bring any play to an abrupt end.
Below the vulgar pit were raised seats called the grada. Covered by a wood roof supported by pillars, people of higher quality sat in the terraced seating. Above the amphitheater-type seating of the gradas were aposentos, box seating, where the very rich sat.
'The aposentos were originally windowed rooms in the adjoining house, but the theater owner built these to ensure he collected admissions,' Ana told me. To the side of the terraced seating was the infamous cazuela. 'The stewing pan,' Ana said. 'This is where the lower-class women watch the play. Mateo says you have attended some plays and have experienced the vulgar antics of the mosqueteros. But you have not experienced true vulgarity until you hear the women of the stewing pan express their disappointment in a play or an actor.'
We went to the play in Ana's carriage. We took along her friend, Felicia, a woman a few years younger than Ana and almost as sensual. To my surprise, the two women went to the play wearing masks—and dressed as men. Not as caballeros, but commoners.
'Unless it's a religious play, decent women wear masks to performances,' Ana said.
'To keep people from recognizing them?'
'No, they want to be recognized by their friends. It's for modesty sake. A lady of quality cannot be seen at a play. Except by other ladies of quality.'
'Oh.' I did not understand, but it was just another mystery about women of which I was ignorant. 'And the men's clothing. Do the women of Seville always dress as men when they attend plays?'
'Of course not. The purpose of the disguise is to permit us to publicly comment on the play,' Felicity said.
Again, I did not understand how men's disguises gave Ana and Felicity the right to critique a play, but when they stepped from the carriage, carrying bags of tomatoes, I began to suspect there was more to these guises than met the eye. Particularly, when they told me to buy tickets for the patio.
'We are to stand in the pit?' I asked. 'With the mosqueteros.'
Ay, the gleam in their eyes told me that I was in the hands of Mateo-style maniacs. Except I was soon to discover that his dementia had nothing on these two women-in-men's clothing.
The play was regarded as second only to the tale of Don Quixote as a great masterpiece of Spanish literature. But it was also controversial.
'The Holy Office vacillates about La Celestina, and it is on and off the Inquisition's banned list,' Ana said. 'And when they do ban it, their edicts are ignored, troubling them to no end. The familiars would not dare take the autor or his cast into custody. The people would not permit it.
Referred to generally as La Celestina, the
Celestina was a bawd who served as a go-between for two young lovers, Calisto and Melibea. Calisto was from the minor nobility; Melibea was of higher status and wealth, making them unsuitable marriage partners. But they came together as lovers and defied convention, not just by speaking words of love, but by physically consummating their passions.
The true star of the comedia was Celestina, who was both evil and cunning. Her coarse humor and ironic commentary fascinated audiences everywhere. But her cunning and greed ultimately betrayed her. Paid for her role as go-between, she refused to share her gold with her conspirators. After killing her, they were themselves murdered by an angry mob.
But nothing would free the lovers of their own fate. Their uncontrolled passions were the instrument of their doom. Calisto was killed in a fall from a ladder to Melibea's window. Melibea—her lover dead, her honor ruined by her virginity's loss—throws herself from a tower window.
'Their attempt to defy destiny was doomed,' Ana explained in the carriage ride to the theater. 'Fate and custom foreordained their end—foreordains all our ends, demonstrating the futility of opposing the gods.'
'Who was the author?' I asked.
'A converso Jew, a lawyer. He first published anonymously because of fear of the Inquisition.'
As I watched it, I could well understand the author's fear. The language of the play was often coarse. Celestina made bawdy comments about a young man's 'scorpion tail' pene, whose sting produces nine months of swelling. A character accuses Celestina and a girl who lives with her of having 'calluses' on their stomach from all of the men who visit. There are suggestions of female bestiality, though not in regard to the lovely and innocent Melibea.
Those pompous inquisitors from New Spain would throw fits were they to watch twenty-one acts of La Celestina, in which lust, vice, superstition, and evil were main characters. As a sort of heavenly justice, I imagined myself tying them up, pinning their eyes open, and forcing them to watch the play repeatedly.
The tomatoes? You wonder what they did with the tomatoes? When we entered the pit it was filled with men who chattered endlessly. All of them appeared not only to have seen the play performed before, but some appeared to have come to this particular presentation on more than one occasion. These street merchants and common laborers discussed the actors, the way they delivered their lines, their mistakes and triumphs, as if they themselves were the play's autor. The play was conducted in the middle of the afternoon in order to utilize sunlight. Why were these louts going to a play in the middle of the day instead of working?
But I, too, soon got used to expecting good performances.
'It's what we paid our money for,' Ana said. 'When I first acted, my pay was the coins tossed on the stage during my performance. I went hungry until I learned how to play a character.
Ana and Felicity were not the only ones who knew the exact lines from the play. Some of the favorite lines, usually those which were deshonesto, were spoken by the mosqueteros at the same time the actor uttered them.
I was quickly enthralled. Soon I was throwing tomatoes myself....
After the performance we rode back to Ana's large home. On the way I noticed Felicity looking at me more and more with a small smile and seductively bold eyes.
When we arrived back at her house, Ana instructed us, 'Come, we will use my pool to refresh ourselves.'
Her 'pool' was an ancient Roman bath. The city had many Roman ruins, and Ana's was not the only house built upon a bath or other edifice.
I had taken many baths in the warm pool with Ana. I was startled when she suggested that the three of us enjoy a bath together.
'Felicity's lover has been in Madrid for a month,' Ana said.
He was none other than the younger brother of the count who was Ana's own benefactor and lover, the brother who Ana said preferred men.
'But he has to keep up an appearance of propriety,' she said. 'Hence Felicity, who is a fine actor.'
I did not understand what Ana meant by Felicity being a fine actor.
Ana was already in the water when I slipped into the pool, putting my towel aside as the warm water engulfed me. Felicity sat on the edge with her towel wrapped around her as Ana and I came together.
