To all this we must add that they were poorly paid, and that their managers were almost always in debt. But, like other forms of vagabond life, its freedom from restraints made it attractive to not a few loose persons, in a country like Spain, where it was difficult to find liberty of any sort. This attraction, however, did not last long. The drama fell in its consequence and popularity as rapidly as it had risen. Long before the end of the century, it ceased to encourage or protect such numbers of idlers as were at one time needed to sustain its success;[738] and in the reign of Charles the Second it was not easy to collect three companies for the festivities occasioned by his marriage.[739] Half a century earlier, twenty would have striven for the honor.
During the whole of the successful period of the drama in Spain, its exhibitions took place in the day-time. On the stages of the different palaces, where, when Howell was in Madrid, in 1623,[740] there were representations once a week, it was sometimes otherwise; but the religious plays and autos, with all that were intended to be really popular, were represented in broad daylight,—in the winter at two, and in the summer at three, in the afternoon, every day in the week.[741] Till near the middle of the seventeenth century, the scenery and general arrangements of the theatre were probably as good as they were in France when Corneille appeared, or perhaps better; but in the latter part of it, the French stage was undoubtedly in advance of that at Madrid, and Madame d’Aulnoy makes herself merry by telling her friends that the Spanish sun was made of oiled paper, and that in the play of “Alcina” she saw the devils quietly climbing ladders out of the infernal regions, to reach their places on the stage.[742] Plays that required more elaborate arrangements and machinery were called comedias de ruido,—noisy or showy dramas,—and are treated with little respect by Figueroa and Luis Vélez de Guevara, because it was thought unworthy of a poetical spirit to depend for success on means so mechanical.[743]
The stage itself, in the two principal theatres of Madrid, was raised only a little from the ground of the court-yard where it was erected, and there was no attempt at a separate orchestra,—the musicians coming to the forepart of the scene whenever they were wanted. Immediately in front of the stage were a few benches, which afforded the best places for those who bought single tickets, and behind them was the unencumbered portion of the court-yard, where the common file were obliged to stand in the open air. The crowd there was generally great, and the persons composing it were called, from their standing posture and their rude bearing, mosqueteros, or infantry. They constituted the most formidable and disorderly part of the audience, and were the portion that generally determined the success of new plays.[744] One of their body, a shoemaker, who in 1680 reigned supreme in the court-yard over the opinions of those around him, reminds us at once of the critical trunk-maker in Addison.[745] Another, who was offered a hundred rials to favor a play about to be acted, answered proudly that he would first see whether it was good or not, and, after all, hissed it.[746] Sometimes the author himself addressed them at the end of his play, and stooped to ask the applause of this lowest portion of the audience. But this was rare.[747]
Behind the sturdy mosqueteros were the gradas, or rising seats, for the men, and the cazuela, or “stewpan,” where the women were strictly inclosed, and sat crowded together by themselves. Above all these different classes were the desvanes and aposentos, or balconies and rooms, whose open, shop-like windows extended round three sides of the court-yard in different stories, and were filled by those persons of both sexes who could afford such a luxury, and who not unfrequently thought it one of so much consequence, that they held it as an heirloom from generation to generation.[748] The aposentos were, in fact, commodious rooms, and the ladies who resorted to them generally went masked, as neither the actors nor the audience were always so decent that the ladylike modesty of the more courtly portion of society might be willing to countenance them.[749]
It was deemed a distinction to have free access to the theatre; and persons who cared little about the price of a ticket struggled hard to obtain it.[750] Those who paid at all paid twice,—at the outer door, where the manager sometimes collected his claims in person, and at the inner one, where an ecclesiastic collected what belonged to the hospitals, under the gentler name of alms.[751] The audiences were often noisy and unjust. Cervantes intimates this, and Lope directly complains of it. Suarez de Figueroa says, that rattles, crackers, bells, whistles, and keys were all put in requisition, when it was desired to make an uproar; and Benavente, in a loa spoken at the opening of a theatrical campaign at Madrid by Roque, the friend of Lope de Vega, deprecates the ill-humor of all the various classes of his audience, from the fashionable world in the aposentos to the mosqueteros in the court-yard; though, he adds, with some mock dignity, that he little fears the hisses which he is aware must follow such a defiance.[752] When the audience meant to applaud, they cried “Victor!” and were no less tumultuous and unruly than when they hissed.[753] In Cervantes’s time, after the play was over, if it had been successful, the author stood at the door to receive the congratulations of the crowd as they came out; and, later, his name was placarded and paraded at the corners of the streets with an annunciation of his triumph.[754]
Cosmé de Oviedo, a well-known manager at Granada, was the first who used advertisements for announcing the play that was to be acted. This was about the year 1600. Half a century afterwards, the condition of such persons was still so humble, that one of the best of them went round the city and posted his play-bills himself, which were, probably, written, and not printed.[755] From an early period they seem to have given to acted plays the title which full-length Spanish dramas almost uniformly bore during the seventeenth century and even afterwards,—that of comedia famosa;—though we must except from this remark the case of Tirso de Molina, who amused himself with calling more than one of his successful performances “Comedia sin fama,”[756]—a play without repute. But this was, in truth, a matter of mere form, soon understood by the public, who needed no especial excitement to bring them to theatrical entertainments, for which they were constitutionally eager. Some of the audience went early to secure good places, and amused themselves with the fruit and confectionery carried round the court-yard for sale, or with watching the movements of the laughing dames who were inclosed within the balustrade of the cazuela, and who were but too ready to flirt with all in their neighbourhood. Others came late; and if they were persons of authority or consequence, the actors waited for their appearance till the disorderly murmurs of the groundlings compelled them to begin.[757]
At last, though not always till the rabble had been composed by the recitation of a favorite ballad or by some popular air on the guitars, one of the more respectable actors, and often the manager himself, appeared on the stage, and, in the technical phrase, “threw out the loa” or compliment,[758]—a peculiarly Spanish form of the prologue, of which we have abundant specimens from the time of Naharro, who calls them intróytos, or overtures, down to the final fall of the old drama. They are prefixed to all the autos of Lope and Calderon; and though, in the case of the multitudinous secular plays of the Spanish theatre, the appropriate loas are no longer found regularly attached to each, yet we have them occasionally with the dramas of Tirso de Molina, Calderon, Antonio de Mendoza, and not a few others.
The best are those of Agustin de Roxas, whose “Amusing Travels” are full of them, and those of Quiñones de Benavente, found among his “Jests in Earnest.” They were in different forms, dramatic, narrative, and lyrical, and on very various subjects and in very various measures. One of Tirso’s is in praise of the beautiful ladies who were present at its representation;[759]—one of Mendoza’s is in honor of the capture of Breda, and flatters the national vanity upon the recent successes of the Marquis of Spinola;[760]—one by Roxas is on the glories of Seville, where he made it serve as a conciliatory introduction for himself and his company, when they were about to act there;[761]—one by Sanchez is a jesting account of the actors who were to perform in the play that was to follow it;[762]—and one by Benavente was spoken by Roque de Figueroa, when he began a series of representations at court, and is devoted to a pleasant exposition of the strength of his company, and a boastful announcement of the new dramas they were able to produce.[763]
Gradually, however, the loas, whose grand object was to conciliate the audience, took more and more the popular dramatic form; and at last, like several by Roxas, Mira de Mescua, Moreto, and Lope de Vega,[764] differed little from the farces that followed them.[765] Indeed, they were almost always fitted to the particular occasions that called them forth, or to the known demands of the audience;—some of them being accompanied with singing and dancing, and others ending with rude practical jests.[766] They are, therefore, as various in their tone as they are in their forms; and, from this circumstance, as well as from their easy national humor, they became at last an important part of all dramatic representations.
The first jornada or act of the principal performance followed the loa, almost as a matter of course, though, in some instances, a dance was interposed; and in others, Figueroa complains, that he had been obliged still to listen to a ballad before he was permitted to reach the regular drama which he had come to hear;[767]—so importunate were the audience for what was lightest and most amusing. At the end of the first act, though perhaps preceded by another dance, came the first of the two entremeses,—a sort of “crutches,” as the editor of Benavente well calls them, “that were given to the heavy comedias to keep them from falling.”