Monday, November 11, 2013
House of Trials
Assuming the norms of Spanish Golden Age comedias from reading House of Trials alone, a convention I would first note would be the lack of inner monologues and dramatic irony. As one reads through, they will notice the enormous amount of asides given by the characters. They communicate with the audience almost as much as they do the other characters, which leads to another convention: lack of the fourth wall. The characters seem to know that they are in a play. In act one scene one, Celia complains: "That's great! A monologue in the middle of the night by candelight? God forbid!" Another even more straightforward moment comes from act three scene one. Castaño, while dressing in women's clothes, says, "Please remember, ladies, that this is a play. Don't think that I hatched this scheme myself. I don't want to fool any of you, especially not Your Excellency." Both of these elements are interesting choices, and I believe they make the play more comical.
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I really appreciate that heightened sense of humor that you mentioned. Often times when trying to achieve humor and comedy today, we choose to downgrade to fart jokes and physical comedy. Sor Juana had a grasp of witty, intelligent humor that we sometimes lack today. I also think this approach to comedy keeps the audience in mind, by pulling them in to the work and making them feel like they are in on the joke. By making asides to them, they probably felt they could relate to the work more.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the convention of breaking the fourth wall with the use of asides. Because this play can be very wordy, there were times when I felt the asides helped me undersatand a particular character's motivations. This makes me wonder if this was part of the reason why the playwright includes them in the play.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the conventions that you have stated. However I wish you would have elaborated more then just saying the choices were interesting and gave more of a comedy feel. For example, you could explain why you think the playwright chose to do it this way and why it is affective for this script. I agree with Josh that the asides helped me understand more of the character's actions more.
ReplyDeletei would find myself getting a little lost so i enjoyed the "asides" because it helped me fully understand what the character was trying to imply or it would help me read the line over with a different intention thn i had previously.
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