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(EL RETABLO DE LAS MARAVILLAS
Five variations on a Cervantes’ theme)

PREMIERED THE 9TH JANUARY 2004 AT TEATRO LOPE DE VEGA IN SEVILLA

“Ver despacio lo que pasa apriesa” – watch out when things happen too quickly!
Cervantes (referring to the theatre)

Nowadays, people tend to believe that we humans evolve as swiftly as science does, and while it is true that some circumstantial behaviours appear or disappear in response to social changes, many of the ways in which a contemporary citizen continues to act are practically indistinguishable from those of his or her equivalent in the Roman Empire. The ‘Classics’ depict precisely those situations which have been repeated almost unchanged down the years because they are based on impulses which are very slow to evolve.

An example of this is the Cervantes light comedy “El Retablo de las Maravillas” (The Miraculous Altarpiece), in which the fear of being perceived as being of doubtful lineage, or even of harbouring Jewish blood, leads people to celebrate and revere something which objectively does not exist – to proclaim as true that which all of them know to be a manifest falsehood. In essence nothing has changed. In fact this story was based on an even older oriental metaphor recreated a hundred years before Cervantes by Don Juan Manuel in his work “Conde Lucanor”, which involved a group of scoundrels ‘weaving’ garments that turn out to be invisible to all those who are not of legitimate birth. This same story appears later in the famous tale by Hans Christian Andersen “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in which only the innocence of a child permits the exposure of the evident nakedness of the Monarch, and of the collective hypocrisy. Two diametrically opposed morals can be drawn from reading these situations. We can blame those who set out to cheat and deceive or, on the other hand, we can lay the responsibility at the door of those who so readily allow themselves to be taken in, and who thereby contribute to the success of the fraudster. The false truth is propagated through the most indolent and ignorant minds in society.

The media doubtless present us today with large numbers of “retablos” in which an enormous mass of people believe blindly in these deceptions, proving once more the idea that “There’s a fool born every day”. Statistically, of course, this is undeniable – there are quite a few more idiots today than in Cervantes’ day. Indeed we find many examples of the most dangerous and obnoxious kind – the learned idiot whose senseless self-confidence can lead to the worst disasters imaginable.

I must also confess to being prey to this senseless self-confidence so typical of our times, as shown by my reckless daring in trying to rework Cervantes’ play in order, as we say nowadays, to adapt it to our times. I beg the genius’ pardon for my temerity: I can only plead that I have done it to the very best of my ability.

I have set out to find a way that allows us to make the leap, in as natural a manner as possible, from the 16th century to our times, with the aim of indicating where some of these contemporary “retablos” are to be found. In this sense, Cervantes’ work was no doubt clear enough, but since we always tend to believe that our forebears were not as clever as us, I have chosen to sketch some of these “retablos” in a fair amount of detail to call into question such a lightweight vision of history.

My initial intention was to construct something based on the magnificent story by Jerzy Kosinski “Being there”, a tale that also inspired the script of that splendid Peter Sellers film of the same name. The story involves a simpleton who, through a chain of confusions and mistakes, ends up as President of the United States. It is true that, in the past, the systems of succession used by Royalty and the members of the Nobility sometimes threw up very similar cases in which a mean or foolish man could attain a tyrannical level of power. But today these situations, far from diminishing in frequency, in fact occur much more often owing to the growing influence of the media, capable of an unprecedented collective ‘dumbing down’. In this context, the least qualified person can be dubbed a genius or elevated to the status of ruler by the fervour of the masses and the legitimacy that democracy confers.

However, while in Kosinski’s work it is the mistakes that propel the rise of the fool, my intention was also to hold responsible those who extol or calmly accept such a situation. Thus I found that the simple plot of “El retablo de las maravillas” was closer to meeting my needs. Seen in this light, and to better direct the story line to this end, I decided that not only the stories arising from the altarpiece would form the heart of the deception but also that the altarpiece itself would be invisible, much like the cloth of the rascally tailors in the story of “Conde Lucanor”. Then I also changed to victims of the trick from being village dwellers to an aristocratic couple whose only child, who is weak in the head, is a cause of despair to his parents. The confidence tricksters, seeing this, exploit the situation and show the parents, through the altarpiece, how in the future similarly retarded people will be taken for a Saint, a genius or even an Emperor.

This then is the starting point which paves the way for the creation of a Cervantine parable. The play then makes the leap to our time, though without losing sight completely of the past thanks to the various 16th century characters who are shown in their contemporary form. It is clear that the modern-day society is much given to the creation of many, many “retablos”, with millions of naive or gullible people more than willing to applaud stupidly. We have simply portrayed some of the most evident examples, avant-garde art, experimental cooking, religion and politics, though in fact there is an enormous range to choose from. In short, the only thing that marks the difference between today and the times of Cervantes, is that were he to be alive today, that literary genius would not have had enough time to satirise all the stupidity that has been lauded and subsidised by the tax-payer.

Albert Boadella

CAST AND PRODUCTION LIST

Ramon Fontserè	Pilar Sáenz	Xavier Boada	Minnie Marx
Jesús Agelet	Dolors Tuneu	Pep Vila	Xavi Sais

Production team