Abstract

This essay examines a classical work of Spain’s Baroque theater, La dama duende (1629) by the dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and a classical movie of Argentinean cinema, La dama duende (1944) by the director Luis Saslavsky. The play, belonging to the genre of cloak and sword drama, becomes a film painted with the most well-known tapestry cartoons by Francisco de Goya. Likewise, the writers María Teresa León and Rafael Alberti transform this play from the 17th century into an extraordinary film of Spanish Civil War exiles set in Argentina. 

Abstract

If, from an anthropological perspective, magical acts are similar to technical acts as well as to rhetorical acts, the artificial magic of baroque theatre results from a suggestive interaction between stage machinery and acting. La dama duende can be read as an original staging of this interaction. Since the intrigue of Doña Ángela de Toledo is based not only on an ingenious role-play, but also on a technical invention compared to the «artificio de Juanelo», Calderón’s best known comedy brings together two aspects of theatrical magic that appear separated one from another in two contemporary pieces inspired by the legend of the magical cave of Salamanca or of  Toledo. Thus, La dama duende transfers to Madrid, the capital of Golden Age theatre, the famous artifice of Toledo and the legendary hiding-place of magicians —not without demonstrating the irresistible spell of stage magic.