Peru Theater

According to 3rjewelry, Peru is a country located in South America. Pre-Columbian Peru certainly experienced many forms of entertainment, in particular religious-choreographic. Popular performances did not cease with the arrival of the Spaniards, on the contrary, in various cases the losers and winners collaborated in choreographic inventions, such as in 1546 to celebrate Pizarro’s entry into Lima. Even the autos sacramentales were soon introduced in Peru and if in most cases the texts were Spanish (especially by Calderón and his school), there was also some local author, such as Alonso Hurtado, winner in 1563 of a competition on the occasion of the Corpus Domini, with an Auto de la gula. The first Spanish secular comedy was performed in Guayaquil in 1568; the first comedy by Lope de Vega was given in Lima in 1599. Collections of comedies, printed especially for America, began to arrive in Peru in 1565, when the theater was born recently in Spain itself. The theater companies came from Spain, with an already formed repertoire. However, there were also local authors who used indigenous languages ​​for representations intended for the people. Among them was the mestizo poet Juan de Espinosa Medrano, known as el Lunarejo, who composed the auto The Prodigal Son in Quechua and the biblical drama Amar su propia muerte in Spanish . From 1559 Lima had a permanent theater, the Coliseo (the previous performances had taken place outdoors, in churches, convents, noble palaces, etc.), thanks to the Spanish company of Francisco López and Isabel de los Ángeles. This was how the scenic events had an impulse, which followed one another thanks also to the inspiration of local authors such as Diego Mejía de Fernangil, Lorenzo de las Llamosas (ca. 1665-after 1705), Juan del Valle Caviedes, who expressed his comic streak. satirical in short works such as the Entremés del amor alcalde, the Baile del amor médico and the Baile del amor tahur, Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, author of interludes, dances, of a musical comedy (Triunfos de amor y poder, 1711), a Calderonian comedy (Afectos vencen finezas) and the tragedy Rodoguna, derived from Corneille. In the meantime, in 1680 the Teatro Principal was built in Lima, for which Antonio de Solis wrote, among others, Gregorio de Villalta y Núñez, Manuela Carrillo de Andrade y Sotomayor, Francisco del Castillo.

Throughout the century. XVIII Lima continued to be a theatrical city; in the second half of the century a famous actress dominated in her social life, Micaela Villegas, called la Perricholi, protected by the viceroy Manuel de Amat, who performed at the Teatro Principal (destroyed by the earthquake of 1746 and rebuilt in 1760) and at the Coliseo (rebuilt in 1788 by the actress and impresario Fermín Vicente Echarri who entrusted the task to the Italian architect Pellegrino Turchi). Even viceroys, like the Marquis de Castell-dos-Rius, and friars, like Francisco del Castillo Andraca, composed farces, interludes and dances. Also Félix de Alarcón, Jerónimo de Monforte, author of the funny farce El amor duende and Jerónimo Fernández de Castro contributed to the flourishing of the theater. A theatrical life also took place in some smaller towns: a Coliseo was built in Arequipo in 1790; in Callao, where a company of nomadic actors had already played in 1595, performances were given on the square or in improvised theaters; around 1780, during an anti-Spanish insurrection, the indigenous drama Ollantay was staged near Cuzco. After the proclamation of independence, the real comedy flourished, free from the bonds of homage to viceroys and governors, thanks above all to Felipe Pardo y Aliaga and Manuel Ascensio Segura, rich in comic strength and icastic vivacity in the rendering of costumes and expressions popular in Lima. During the century. XIX the theater, due to the turmoil of the country, declined and gifted playwrights preferred to leave Peru. Thus there were hardly any romantic authors and a certain theatrical revival occurred only with realism, between the end of the century and the First World War. Among the playwrights of the twentieth century we remember Felipe Sassone (1884-1959), who worked mainly in Spain; the poet L. Yerovi (1881-1917), Percy Gibson Parra, Juan Ríos (b.1914-1991), Bernardo Roca Rey (b.1918), the notable Sebastián Salazar Bondy, author of No hay isla feliz (1954) and also animator of the puppet theater; and among the youngest, Julio Ortega (b. 1942), poet and essayist, whose Theater (1965) contains some texts of certain dramatic force. The ancient Iberian and mestizo tradition is still alive today. Student and experimental groups are attentive to the newest experiences and annual competitions organized by the Escuela Nacional de Arte Escénico introduce new authors. The center of theatrical life is always Lima, with the Municipal Theater, for opera and prose, the Manuel A. Segura Theater, intended mainly for dramatic performances, the Club de Teatro and the Teatro de la Cabana, home to the School of dramatic art.

Peru Theater

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