VIVA FUENTE OVEJUNA!
Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna, produced in 1614 and based upon an actual
event, has a secure place in both the world theatre repertoire and in theatre history
curriculums. Writing when Italian and French Neo-Classicism was in its ascendancy,
Lope consciously (as he explains in El arte nuevo de hacer comedias) structured his plays
in three acts and mixed tragedy and comedy by including characters from all social
classes, speaking in levels of poetry and lyricism determined by situation and emotion
rather than rank. His comedias show the influence of the outside world on seventeenthcentury Spain, incorporating a Renaissance love of knowledge for its own sake, Roman
sententiae, and characters and physical humor from the Italian commedia dell’arte. At
the same time they are intensely Spanish, utilizing the Moorish emphasis on honor, and
national history reinforced by local color and a glorification of the peasantry.
In 1476 Isabella of Castile and her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, both in their
mid-twenties, were struggling to unite several autonomous provinces into the country of
Spain as well as to Christianize large areas controlled by the Islamic Moors. This process
was disrupted when a regional lord (17-year-old Rodrigo Tellez Giron) captured the
border city of Cuidad Real in the name of his cousin, King Alfonso of Portugal, another
claimant to the Spanish throne. One of Giron’s knights was Fernan Gomez de Guzman,
whose fiefdom included the village of Fuente Ovejuna (or “Sheep Well”), which he ruled
with force and whose women he treated as his personal property. An uprising ensued and
the Commander was killed. The Crown sent investigators to pinpoint the murderer.
Three hundred villagers were tortured; all concerned answered: “Fuente Ovejuna did it!”
With no indictment to justify a legal execution, Ferdinand pardoned the entire village and
took it under the rule of the central government.
These references to the unification of Spain, the first modifications of Feudalism,
and the rise of the Rule of Law in place of such noble privileges as the droit de seigneur
justify the classification of Lope’s play as a comedia histórica. Certainly in 1614 Philip
III, Lope’s king and a lover of theatre, looking 140 years in the past, must have seen
Fuente Ovejuna’s paeans to “the kings in Castile who are drawing up new rules to
prevent disorder” as the equating of monarchy with divinity. Is it not a paradox, then,
that the play is a justification of revolution and a statement of the conditions of mind that
must be present if a revolution is to occur? Fuente Ovejuna is best understood if one
looks forward 140 years to Rousseau’s Social Contract which essentially denies the
Divine Right of Kings and states that a government is responsible to its people—a
principle eloquently stated 20 years later in the American Declaration of Independence.
From this point of view, Fuente Ovejuna can be more relevantly defined as a
comedia villanesque. Its protagonists are villagers—from the “villa” or “villains”, i.e. too
low in the ranks of society to be accorded a Code of Honor.* Although the events of the
play are presented to dispute that classification, the fate of its producers has often been
less happy than that of its characters. For example, in 1638 New Mexico when a military
Commander coerced a woman into sexual submission by threatening to send her husband
* Both Lope and Calderon de la Barca wrote what are called “peasant honor plays”, and
some critics differentiate between the “honor” of inherited noble blood and the “honra”
of reputation.
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to his death, the husband’s family killed the commander, citing Lope’s play in their
courtroom defense. All were executed.
In the twentieth century, 300 years after Lope’s death, Fuente Ovejuna continued
to be seen as a threat to entrenched power. In the pre-Civil War Spain of the 1930s, the
great playwright Federico Garcia-Lorca toured the provinces with a student production of
Fuente Ovejuna in which contemporary peasants rose up against their landlords. When
the Fascists came to Andalusia in 1936, they took Lorca into an olive grove and shot him.
In May 1965 a University of Madrid student production, this time adapted and directed
by Alberto Castilla, won the Grand Prize at the World Theatre Festival in Nancy, France.
When the company returned to Spain, further performances were banned. In 1976 when
the army deposed the democratically elected government of Uruguay, the act was greeted
with such a flurry of Fuente Ovejuna productions that the play was banned in its entirety.
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The Fuente Ovejuna I was assigned to direct for the University of Utah’s Babcock
Theatre on October 6-17, 1999, faced no national persecution. Although I had taught the
play for 25 years as part of a theatre history survey, my scholarship areas had nothing to
do with El Siglo de Oro and I don’t speak the language. I was, however, a scholar of
American and British political theatre, was connected to the Ethnic Studies Department
by 20 years of teaching Black American Theatre, and came from a production tradition of
People’s Theatre and political revues. I live in a city divided by railroad tracks and the
state’s major highway into an Anglo East Side and a Hispanic West Side, in a county
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whose major industry at one time paid non-white workers three dollars less per hour.
Finally, I received my assignment at a time when my government was carrying out daily
bombing missions in opposition to “ethnic cleansing” in a faraway place called Kosovo.
Whatever would be the focus of our Fuente Ovejuna, it was clear that the teaching
of Spanish history would be a tool, not an end.
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The style inspiration for the University of Utah’s 1999 Fuente Ovejuna actually
came before the directing assignment, during a sessions break at the San Antonio ATHE
convention a year earlier. Friends from the city took me to the now-closed Hertzberg
Circus Museum, where an exhibit introduced me to the carpa, or touring tent theatre, a
major source of Texas entertainment for the 30-plus years preceding television. I was
familiar with El Teatro Campesino and Luis Valdez, a couple of whose actos I had
adapted for college theatre revues, but didn’t know his La Carpa de los Rasquachis (The
Tent of the Underdogs) had a literal ancestor. The carpa was a form of vaudeville which
combined music, dance and comic sketches with trapeze artists and other circus acts.
During the uncertain times of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), several carpa
companies crossed the Rio Grande into Texas. According to Raymond Garcia, who set
up the Hertzberg exhibit, his family’s theatre came to San Antonio in 1914 after the
assassination of President Huerta, a relative, and continued to perform until 1948. At its
peak in the late 1930s the Carpa Garcia had a year-round touring route of 36 cities,
traveling as far west as San Diego. In a larger venue they might play as long as two
weeks, changing acts, dance numbers, and costumes, so that the show was always new.
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The performers of the different carpas all knew one another—Raymond’s wife, Virginia,
began as a contortionist with the Carpa Cubana—and some of them were huge local
celebrities, moving to and from the legitimate stage, radio, and even film.
I immediately saw in the carpa a connection to the first theatre I knew as a boy in
the 1940s: the Toby Show. Toby plays themselves were indistinguishable from the
repertory of any tent theatre of the era—social comedies, mysteries, westerns, etc.—but
the second male and female leads were always a red-headed hick named Toby and his
freckle-faced girlfriend, Susie. If the carpas were Texas-based, the Toby Shows were
exclusively an Iowa product, but playing as far away as the Richmond, Wisconsin, Town
Hall, a few miles away from the farm where I was born. Richmond was at the crossroads
of a county highway and a state highway, with a Methodist church at the top of the hill
and a Lutheran church at the bottom, and a half-dozen houses, a grocery store, a farm
implement dealer, and my great-uncles’ feed mill in between. But when the Toby Show
arrived it was Broadway to us, followed by Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. For after the
play, the actors turned into musicians, playing Texas Swing until farmers with cows to
milk in the morning could stay no later.
Although I had no idea what a carpa production of Fuente Ovejuna would look or
sound like, I knew it would need music, dance, comedy, and clearly defined characters.
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It would also need a particular imagery and sound, and here we were the
beneficiaries of both chance and the Mexican Revolution itself. During the 1999 spring
break I visited my daughter, a psychology doctoral student at Arizona State University.
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At the ASU Art Museum I was introduced to the works of the Mexican painter Leopoldo
Mendez, specifically ten woodcuts inspired by the 1948 film, Rio Escondido—itself a
modern Fuente Ovejuna story. Rio Escondido (“Hidden River” in English) is the story of
a village whose every aspect is controlled by a brutal landlord who owns the town’s only
well. A gentle teacher leads the peasants in an uprising, the moment of which Mendez
portrays in a woodcut entitled “Torches”, which became the poster for our production.
Our aural identity came from the corrido, the narrative ballad that reached its
greatest popularity during the Mexican Revolution. Before radio, the corrido was used to
spread news of events and popular heroes to an often illiterate population. Corridos were
used by Revolutionaries to counter propaganda in the newspapers of the corrupt Pofirio
Diaz government. For example, that most popular of Mexican songs, La cucaracha, was
rephrased to celebrate victories of Pancho Villa at the expense of his nemesis Venustiano
Carranza. We determined to treat Fuente Ovejuna, with its Shakespearian cinematic
structure, as a ballad and use the corrido art form to set the scene, provide exposition,
link the incidents together, and provide a political/moral commentary.
A problem with the music and dance was that in the second week of July—with
auditions beginning on August 25th, rehearsals on the 31st, and commitments to visiting
the Utah Shakespeare Festival, participating in the Toronto ATHE convention, and a
Wisconsin family gathering in between—we hadn’t a composer, a choreographer, or even
a script! Fortunately for my sanity, it was at that point that Richard Gomez of the Utah
Department of Education introduced me to his daughter Monica Gomez-Rogerson, the
creative director of the Mexican Folkloric Dancers of Salt Lake City, and to Anastacio
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and Elisa Castillo, Lubbock, Texas-born musicians/composers, whose group Rio Bravo
specialized in traditional rancheras—and corridos! Not until August 18th did Monica
sign a contract for three dances and 13 rehearsals and Rio Bravo for 23 rehearsals/
performances and 11 songs, the librettos of eight of which I was to write—it also being
the second week of July when our negotiations with a playwright/librettist fell through.
The Adrian Mitchell adaptation suggested as an alternative seemed too English, leaving
me with the verbose and messenger speech-laden Angel Flores translation I had taught
for years. The copyright had lapsed, the pen was in my hand, and the clock was ticking.
The first authorial question concerned the circumstances under which the story of
Fuente Ovejuna would be relevant to an early 20th century Texas carpa company. If our
audience was to see connections to the past of Salt Lake City and contemporary events in
Kosovo, the importance of race and class assumptions had to be established early. Again,
Texas history in the era of the Mexican Revolution came to our rescue. The MexicanAmerican War was barely sixty years in the past. John O’Sullivan’s term “Manifest
Destiny” actually predates that war, but it had been given new life by the 1898 SpanishAmerican conflict, and in towns along the border Anglo-American supremacy believers
cited Divine authority for whatever violence they committed against “greasers”. Photos
from the period show mounted Texas Rangers dragging behind them bodies of Mexicans
shot for no reason other than their race. Photos also provided the play’s costuming, with
villagers dressed as campesinos, soldiers as federales, the paladins or maestres as general
officers of the Diaz era, and—least successfully—Ferdinand and Isabella as Aztec gods.
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From this history evolved a loa or prologue in which the Carpa de Vega enters a
Texas town square, whose configuration of balconies and open patio around a well recalls
not only courtyards in Spain, but Golden Age theatres (such as the Corral del Principe)
into which they evolved. As some company members set up, others juggle and do
tumbling tricks, musicians sing of a Pancho Villa bombing in the last town they played
across the border, and actresses work the crowd selling sheets of song lyrics from the
play. A lively folk dance segues into La corrido de Fuente Ovejuna, sung in Spanish by
the company. Later in the play, as the villagers face torture to reveal the killer of the
oppressive Comendador, the song is reprised in English to bolster their unity.
In Spanish Cordoba our story is framed,
Of a suffering village, how to freedom it came.
How in the time of Ferdinand-Isabel
The glory was born that we know as Sheep Well.
The location was rural, the system was feudal.
Our patience was long, but our leader was brutal.
Our women he threatened, our honor abhorred.
Such was our fate ‘neath the brave Comendador.
We prayed to our god, we prayed to our king
We prayed for a law that deliverance would bring.
We prayed to be equal so straight we could stand.
But no god would answer, but the god of our hands.
We killed what would kill us; we stood, did not fall.
And in standing together we learned that all law
Is the product of honor, of honor and love—
A love for one’s people, not just God above.
We are the people, Fuente Ovejuna,
And the lesson we bring is that, later or sooner,
Men must rise up ‘gainst the monsters above them—
A task they can face, if someone will love them.
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The actors don their costumes, while the company director, who also plays
Esteban, mayor of Fuente Ovejuna, steps forward to introduce the play in Spanish. He is
interrupted by a Texas Ranger (who will later reappear in the role of the Comendador),
demanding that the actors “talk ‘Merican or get your greasy butts outa town. Savvy?”
Speaking in perfect English, Esteban defuses the tension and the play begins with Rio
Bravo’s introduction of the Comendador’s visit to the Maestre of Calatrava.
Rodrigo Giron one spring day receives guests.
Fernan Gomez, his kinsman, has brought a request.
They talk of their family, but a war is their subject.
To wipe out a city the Comendador’s object.
The city that falls will experience all horrors,
But everyone knows that’s the way of all wars.
The folk in their suffering just don’t understand.
It’s part of the process that makes a great land.
This question the Comendador gives us to ponder:
Can an act of much bloodshed be an act of much honor?
Thematically, three words are key to Fuente Ovejuna: Blood, Honor, and Love.
Fernan Gomez de Guzman, the Comendador, justifies his actions on the basis of his noble
blood. He demands Rodrigo Giron accept his advice because they are related, supporting
for similar reasons the claim of Alonzo of Portugal to the Spanish throne. We hoped—
five years after Rwanda’s massacres and during the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Bosnia—
to show the dangers of magnifying “family” into tribalism and nationalistic xenophobia.
The “villains” whom the Comendador abuses are “beneath” the Code of Honor, and the
women whom he assaults are “honored” by their contact with his blood. This is an
undermining of the Social Contract. Followers must have respect from their leaders if
they are to consent to be led. As Esteban says, “Honor can only be given by those who
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have it.” Similarly, Lope’s play makes an early equation of honor with love. When
asked if she is in love in Act I, Laurencia answers, “I love my honor.” Here, as in the
condemnation of male motives she joins with Pascuala and the verbal duel she fights with
Frondoso earlier in the scene, Laurencia seems a woman resisting male dominance.*
However, when Frondoso defends her honor against their feudal lord, it is the beginning
of their love. In Act III, it is only when after her rape Laurencia challenges the village for
its cowardice that they revolt against the Comendador. Finally, when 300 men, women
and children endure torture without informing on their fellow villagers, it is the ultimate
manifestation of the love and honor they feel toward one another, and an early example in
theatre history of a collective hero.
Reinforcing the theme of love and collective unity required further development
of some characters in the Flores translation, most obviously Jacinta, the peasant girl who
in Flores’ version appears only to be taken off by the Comendador to be raped and turned
over to his soldiers. It seemed essential that Jacinta be shown as part of the village before
her rape, and that she be reintegrated into the culture afterward. Our Jacinta appears in
the first village scene, making supper tortillas with Laurencia and Pascuala by the well.
She is wordless, learning her social role by listening to the older girls. She is an observer
when Mengo, the gracioso character who is a companion to Frondoso and Barrildo, the
suitors to Laurencia and Pascuala, makes his speech about self-love being the only true
love. Mengo first notices her when they almost bump into one another when leaving that
* Laurencia fits into two categories defined by Teresa Soufas: the mujer esquiva, or
woman who rejects marriage and must be “tamed”; and the mujer varonil, the woman
who fights like a man to regain her honor.
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scene, and it is he who tries to protect Jacinta from the Comendador’s men in Act II,
rejecting by his action the selfish philosophy he expressed earlier. It is also Mengo who,
at the dance which precedes Laurencia and Frondoso’s wedding, goes to Jacinta and
draws her into the circle to take part, while it is she, in turn, who first runs to him when
he is released from torture near the end of the play. Jacinta also joins the other women in
the uprising against the Comendador’s men, most notably when she helps push the
Comendador’s aide (who is trying to rape Laurencia) down the well.
Action in the Flores’ translation is largely rhetorical, and with the loss of Lope’s
poetry the audience is lost as well. Sometimes the replacement of words with actions
involved minimal substitutions and additions, such as the dance executed by the three
young girls in place of the long description of the gifts given to the Comendador at his
homecoming celebration, and the artillery barrage accompanying the escape of Fernan
Gomez and Rodrigo Giron from Cuidad Real in Act II. Other additions were more
extensive. A traditional Mexican wedding includes congratulatory songs to the bride and
groom. Our Fuente Ovejuna had two, followed by a parody sung by Mengo.
Best wishes to the bride, congratulations groom.
May your tiny little pistol go boom, boom, boom.
May your marriage hang together, may the noose never slip.
May your pretty little bride get a hairy upper lip.
May your children number twenty, may you only have two beds.
May your sons never work, may your daughters never wed.
May your roof always leak, may the sun never shine.
May you have to sneak across the road to get a glass of wine.
Congratulations groom. May your marriage be no freak.
May your marriage last a hundred years, your dowry just two weeks.
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We also chose to utilize the spectacle potential of the Flores-described villager
invasion of the Comendador’s hacienda and the escape of Frondoso, and add to it the
attack of the women on the Comendador’s aides, ending in the already mentioned
pushing of one of them into the well. An entirely new scene followed with the young
men celebrating their victory with an improvised soccer game featuring the head of the
Commendador as a ball. Rio Bravo accompanied the game with La Corrido de Fernan
Gomez, with each young man taking a stanza like this one of Barrildo.
Fernan Gomez, our comendador,
A hombre we knew as muy macho.
He’d take the blood that he spilled in his wars
And use it to make his gazpacho.
A soldier he was, so fierce to the bone,
He feared no bullets of lead.
His victories we’d write upon his headstone,
If only he still had a head.
The final scene to receive an original visual form was the torture of the villagers,
not seen in Flores’ translation, but described by Laurencia and Frondoso as they watch in
hiding. The center door in the back wall of the set, which was broken through during the
attack on the Comendador’s hacienda, opens to reveal a wagon with three torture devices
attached to it: a head crusher, a rack, and a whipping post. The victims undergoing
interrogation are Pascuala, Esteban, and Mengo. After the inquisitors tire of their
unsuccessful attempts to force a confession and the peasants are freed, the play moves on
to its last scene—a meeting between Ferdinand and Isabella and the people of Fuente
Ovejuna.
For the first time those at the top of the social ladder meet those at the bottom.
The judge admits his inability to produce a single piece of corroborating evidence.
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Rodrigo Giron urges that a lesson be taught “to those who kill their betters!” The
Villagers recount their grievances at the hands of the Comendador. The Queen whispers
advice into the ear of the King, and the Social Contract is renewed.
“Though the crime is grave, there has been no indictment set down. Therefore, I must
pardon you, because all men—kings and villagers—must be equal under the law. From
this time forth, the people of Fuente Ovejuna must be my responsibility, and I must serve
them, even as they serve me.”
The Musicians again strike up La Corrido de Fuente Ovejuna, the actors take
their curtain calls, each one gathering up a prop or a banner as soon as he or she has been
recognized, and the company heads down the road, to carry their play and the local news
to another town and a new audience.
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The 1999 University of Utah production of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna was
not a precisely pre-planned artistic endeavor. It arose spontaneously out of necessity,
chance, and half-recognized influences. It attempted to take a classic Spanish play,
produce it according to an almost forgotten American artistic format, and use it to
comment on events and attitudes that were both local and international. Was it
successful? Who knows? We watch a 400-year-old play and would do well to remember
the words of theatre artist Robert Wilson when he visited Bosnia in 1997: “What we are
doing is wrong. When we find out what we are doing, we will stop. The purpose of Art
is to show us what we are doing.”*
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* My thanks to Kerry Wilks, many of whose comments on the first draft of this paper
have been incorporated into the present text.
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