El auto sacramental calderoniano en el contexto contemporáneo. Aspectos estéticos y políticos para su “autonomización”

Abstract

The auto sacramental has been staged and adapted throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries for different aesthetic and political reasons. Certain characteristics of the genre –such as its propagandistic sacralization of national myth, its dependence on state financing, its allegorical structure and its tendency toward extreme theatricality– facilitate a political reading of the auto sacramental. This article outlines aspects of the baroque auto that render it a genre that is not only attractive but also relevant on the contemporary stage. The article begins with a discussion of Fiesta Barroca, a street spectacle directed by Miguel Narros to be performed on the streets on Madrid to celebrate Madrid as the European Cultural Capital in 1992. Throughout I provide a detailed examination of the characteristics of the auto mentioned above in their original context to understand how this apparently anachronistic genre can be staged in a contemporary context.