Since the early twentieth century, scholars have read and analyzed early modern Spanish plays as purely textual literature, foregoing a focus on the essentially dramatic nature of the works. Recently, scholarship has begun to acknowledge the importance of treating the play text as part of a more significant whole that encompasses its performative value as well as the theatrical signifiers embedded within the text. I argue that to understand and analyze fully this dramatic significance, it is crucial to understand the historical space in which the plays were performed. Technological advances have provided us with new avenues of exploration and new methods of inquiry in the digital humanities, and utilizing these tools, I am creating a recreation of an early modern Spanish public playhouse (un corral de comedias) as a 3D interactive model accessible in a virtual-reality environment.
Contemporary of Shakespeare and London’s Globe Theatre, early modern Spanish drama was the country’s primary source of entertainment for all social levels, from the king to the day laborer. The most prolific Spanish playwright, Lope de Vega, claimed to have written over one thousand plays during his lifetime (some six hundred of his plays survive). Plays were performed daily in public theaters throughout the country, and the dramatic literature that survives today is considered central to Spain’s Golden Age of arts. In Madrid, two permanent playhouses thrilled audiences with their offerings, one of which was El Corral del Príncipe. Named for its location on Calle Príncipe, El Corral del Príncipe was founded in 1582 when local charitable brotherhoods bought adjoining properties and converted their inner courtyard into a theater. From the opening performance on September 21, 1583, this theater provided a lucrative source of income for the brotherhoods who used the money to help fund their hospitals for the poor. The theater, at its inception just a thrust stage in the yard, evolved with bench and stool seating, separate sections for spectators in the facing property (including a women’s seating area known as la cazuela), upper galleries above the stage that served as appearance areas for actors, and stage machinery for special effects. Owners of the neighboring properties rented or sold box seats to nobles and royalty. After almost two centuries of use, the original playhouse was converted into a proscenium arch theater, and today the Teatro Español occupies the ground where the Corral del Príncipe once stood.
