Browsing by Author "Cowling, Erin"
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Item Academics in practice: moving beyond appreciation(2022) Cowling, Erin; Garza, Ana Karen RodasIn this short article, a professor and her student reflect on an ongoing project that brings them into close contact with theatrical adaptations. They discuss the ups and downs of working closely with Sor Juana’s Los empeños de una casa and Mexican actor Fernando Villa Proal of EFE TRES Teatro throughout the pandemic that started in early 2020 and has extended long into 2021. The piece also includes interview materials from theater practitioners who are interested in the overlap between theater and research. These are just some of the conclusions and suggestions that they have arrived at throughout this process, with an aim to bring academic and artistic practices into closer alignment.Item Breaking the barriers: the construction and deconstruction of language(2019) Rivas Renderos, Gabriela; Cowling, ErinIndigenous peoples have repeatedly mentioned that it is hard for them to make connections to this country because of the language barriers they face, and have been facing, since the colonization period. This is also due to the fact that Indigenous Peoples have to deconstruct the English language in order to be able to understand/process the input they are receiving. This is why it is hard for them to make meaningful connections to Canada; Language for Indigenous peoples is used as a base foundation that they build their society on and around. Communication is used to pass on important information from generation to generation and constructs their religion, culture, and beliefs. It would be of benefit to Indigenous peoples if research focused on how they construct and deconstruct the English language in order to make sense of what others are trying to communicate; what are their techniques or strategies, and how could we help them make this whole constructing/deconstructing process easier on them. This could theoretically be beneficial not only for Indigenous peoples, but for immigrants as well. Interdisciplinary Dialogue Project.Item Confinement, COVID, and the comedia in Mexico City(2022) Cowling, ErinThe COVID19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the arts, particularly the performing arts, where live audiences are an important part of the creative process. In spite of the immense roadblocks created by this crisis, artists around the world began to shift their craft online. No where do we see a more rapid shift than in Mexico City, propelled in part by the theater department at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. This paper will look at the ways in which small theater companies were able to move their current productions online in the weeks following the shutdown, and how they evolved over the course of 2020 and into 2021, innovating and creating new digital-theatrical spaces via platforms like Zoom, YouTube, and Facebook live.Item Creación de los clásicos para el siglo XXI: conversación con Grumelot(2022) Cowling, Erin; Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.; Fernández, EstherGrumelot/Nave 73 es una compañía de producción y de formación de actores que combina el teatro clásico —mayormente peninsular— con una visión actual, que va más allá de la mera adaptación a la época contemporánea. Entre sus muchas peculiaridades que vuelven única a esta compañía está su determinación de llevar obras poco conocidas del Siglo de Oro a nuestros escenarios. Otro de sus objetivos artísticos es su genuino acercamiento al público a través de sus producciones. La intimidad conceptual, espacial y sonora que incorporan en sus puestas en escena envuelven al público de manera orgánica, rompiendo así toda barrera museística. A manos de esta compañía se aprecian los clásicos desde su esencia y desnudez más profunda que viene a ser la palabra, acompañada de la voz. La fuerza emocional con la que Grumelot transmite la dramaturgia áurea, insufla una nueva vida a estas obras en donde el temido «deadly theatre», que teoriza Peter Brook, queda enterrado y superado por un teatro vivo, que atrapa al espectador y no lo suelta. Es imposible salir de una función de Grumelot de la misma manera que se ha entrado y así esperamos que se evidencie en esta entrevista. Dada la situación pandémica en la que nos encontramos cuando hablamos con los directores de la escuela y cofundadores de la compañía, Carlota Gaviño e Íñigo Rodríguez-Claro, nos enfocamos en la mezcla de digital/presencial que ya existía en sus puestas en escena. Además, discutimos la labor pedagógica, la adaptación de los clásicos para el siglo XXI, el minimalismo y maximalismo de sus producciones, la recepción y la mirada cómplice del espectador. Por cuestiones de espacio y claridad, esta entrevista ha sido editada por las entrevistadoras.Item The criticism is coming from inside the casa: Sor Juana’s colonial critique(2023) Cowling, ErinThe debates surrounding Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s fictional work have frequently centered on her use of autobiographical details to inform her characterizations and plots. In Los empeños de una casa, Sor Juana incorporates not only her personal details but also her deep connections to Mexico as a colonized state, to an extent not yet fully explored by scholars. Thus, she breaks the rules of her peninsular counterparts, and subsequently critiques Spain as an imperial power under the guise of a simple comedia de capa y espada. Although the gracioso servant, Castaño, has always been obviously a colonial figure, there are arguments that two more of the protagonists have New World roots. As the play progresses, we find they can overcome the machinations of their peninsular foils at least in part due to their outsider status, ultimately demonstrating a kinder, gentler form of living and loving. Given the play’s original intended audience of religious and secular powers, this demonstrates not only Sor Juana’s subtle genius, but her ability to fly under the radar of her potential censors, ultimately foreshadowing the issues that would arise as Spain’s reach grew into an uncontrollably large empire, destined to fail.Item Entrevista a Novohispunk Teatro: desde la distancia social hasta tu propio balcón(2021) Cowling, Erin; Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.Novohispunk Teatro es una compañía mexicana que se denomina a sí misma como "una pandilla de creadores urbanos-escénicos." Sus espectáculos se caracterizan por la adaptación irreverente de obras clásicas y virreinales. En los últimos cuatro años han montado cuatro obras: Hazle como quieras (o la duodécima noche), La verdad sospechosa, Los empeños de una casa, y Shake, shake, Shakespeare. En esta entrevista, hablamos con cuatro miembros de la compañía, quienes discuten sus inicios e iniciativas teatrales dentro y fuera de los escenarios tradicionales. Además, hablan de cómo enfrentaron los desafíos que trajo la pandemia y de cómo sobrepasaron los límites de la distancia para continuar llevando sus espectáculos en vivo.Item Entrevista con EFE TRES Teatro: El Merolico confinado(2021) Cowling, Erin; Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.EFE TRES Teatro es una compañía mexicana fundada en 2012 por Fernando Memije, Fernando Villa y Allan Flores, que se especializa en adaptar y poner en escena obras clásicas, hispanas e inglesas.1 Entre su repertorio encontramos El príncipe ynocente de Lope de Vega, ¿Qué con Quique Quinto? (adaptación cabaret de Enrique V de William Shakespeare junto con la compañía Cabaret Misterio) y El Merolico (adaptación unipersonal de los entremeses de Miguel de Cervantes). Próximamente van a estrenar una nueva versión de Los empeños de una casa por Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Su filosofía artística se demuestra en el minimalismo de sus adaptaciones, incluyendo el elenco, la utilería, el vestuario, y el decorado. Emplean estilos barrocos como el ñaque o el bululú, con el fin de conectar con una audiencia contemporánea.Item Hija del desengaño': Diana's life prior to Agustín Moreto's El desdén con el desdén(2022) Cowling, ErinIn this article I argue that, while Diana is central to the plot of Agustín Moreto’s comedy of 1694, her motivations and life preceding the start of El desdén con el desdén have been largely ignored by critics and practitioners alike. By looking at her interactions from start to finish, a pattern emerges that tells her backstory, one that is more complex than we first imagine. While Diana has often been discussed as a welleducated and intelligent character, a close reading of her dialogue demonstrates that she also rejects love as a result of her experience. This reading is in line with Moreto’s reputation as a more modern, proto-feminist dramaturg. It also gives contemporary audiences a portrayal to which they can relate more readily.Item Introduction. Confronting the challenges of the 21st Century(2022) Cowling, Erin; Fernández, Esther; Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.We have compiled this collection from presenters at the 37th Annual Association for Hispanic and Classical Theater Symposium, which we had the privilege to organize in collaboration with the Festival de Teatro Clásico de Almagro in July 2021. The three lines of research on which we decided to center the conference are reflected in the articles of this issue of Comedia Performance: (1) Theater Practicalities: Innovation, translation, and pedagogical collaborations, (2) The Intersectional Comedia: Questions of Race, Gender, Class on the Stage, and (3) The Comedia under Siege: Confinements, Digitalization, and the Future.Item Introduction: the comedia under siege(2022) Cowling, Erin; Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.; Fernández, EstherThis introduction engages with the meaning and socio-cultural impact of a variety of artistic contributions within the realm of Hispanic theater that have been carried out in the Spanish-speaking world in order to keep production of the comedia afloat during the confinement due to COVID-19. It discusses what this implies for an inherently live medium such as the theater and, ultimately, introduces the content of the rest of the volume.Item The making of the shiny knight of Chicanos, part one: a conversation with Octavio Solis(2023) Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.; Cowling, ErinOctavio Solis is one of the most prominent Latinx playwrights of our time. He has written over twenty plays that have been performed at prestigious venues such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center for Performing Arts, the San Diego Repertory Theater, Dallas Theater Company, and many more. He has also taught creative writing at universities around the United States. His work incorporates the Mexican American experience of the border, bringing Chicano culture to the mainstage. This interview is part of Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas’ and Erin A. Cowling’s work on Siglo Latinx, a larger project that examines how Latinx artists are updating early modern Spanish theatre to reflect their experiences. Solis discusses how growing up in El Paso, Texas on the Mexico-United States border shaped his work, focusing on his adaptations of three pieces from the Baroque period: Man of the Flesh (from El Burlador de Sevilla), Dreamlandia (from La vida es sueño) and Quixote Nuevo (From Don Quijote de la Mancha).Item The making of the shiny knight of Chicanos, part two: a conversation with Octavio Solis(2023) Nieto-Cuebas, Glenda Y.; Cowling, ErinThis second installment of Erin A. Cowling and Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas’ interview with playwright Octavio Solis investigates Solis’ latest Golden Age adaptation, Quixote Nuevo, and continues the conversation about representations of the borderlands between Mexico and the United States in his work.Item Métodos cuantitativos, análisis cualitativo: el uso de la tecnología moderna en la enseñanza de la literatura áurea(2018) Cowling, Erin; Wheeler, Paige Erin; Marquez-Uppman, JuliaEste ensayo examina el uso de los programas digitales dentro del proceso de investigación intensiva en colaboración entre estudiantes de licenciatura y sus profesores. Se usa el programa NVivo para mostrar cómo los datos cuantitativos pueden formar la base de un estudio cualitativo, en particular con textos del Siglo de Oro, los cuales resultan difíciles a los novicios. Explicamos nuestra metodología y luego las estudiantes demuestran su análisis a través de diferentes disciplinas. Paige Erin Wheeler utiliza NVivo y los estudios lingüísticos para destacar las diferencias en las descripciones de personajes masculinos y femeninos en La fuerza de la sangre de Miguel de Cervantes, mientras Julia Marquez-Uppman analiza La fuerza del amor por María de Zayas a través de NVivo y la crítica feminista de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.Item Mujeres esquivas and the paternal function(2015) Cowling, ErinUsing the psychoanalytical concept of the paternal function, this article will explore the ways in which two similar plays, Lo que son mujeres by Francisco Rojas Zorilla and El desdén con el desdén by Agustín Moreto diverge in their endings, hinging on the function, or lack thereof, of the father figure.Item Recuperating Ruíz de Alarcón: Los empeños de un engaño as source text for Calderón de la Barca and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz(2023) Cowling, ErinThis paper considers a little-studied play, Los empeños de un engaño by Juan Ruíz de Alarcón, as a possible source text for both Calderón de la Barca’s Los empeños de un acaso and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Los empeños de una casa. The phonetic similarities of the latter two titles have relegated Ruíz de Alarcón’s unique drama to obscurity. However, the unusual details of both the Alarcón and Sor Juana pieces demonstrate the relative freedom the two New World authors had in composing unique versions of the capa y espada genre, particularly when compared to their peninsular counterpart. Although all three plays are similar in title, plot, and even character names, they are ultimately unique pieces that speak to the specific conditions under which each of their authors composed and staged their work. It is also the author’s wish that this paper, along with the recent discovery that the play La monja alferez was penned by Alarcón and not Pérez de Montalbán (Vega García-Luengos, 2021), will inspire more scholars to consider the Mexican dramaturg’s oeuvre beyond his better-known pieces such as La verdad sospechosa or Las paredes oyen.Item Representing the unrepresentable: a one-man retelling of Cervantes’s Entremeses(2020) Cowling, ErinWhen Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra published his Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses nuevos, nunca representados in 1615, he could not have imagined what a twenty-first-century Mexican theater company would be able to create out of his short interludes. Even with the great mind that brought us the Quijote, it would have been beyond his wildest dreams to see a one-man adaptation of three of his pieces2 – El viejo celoso, El retablo de las maravillas, and La cueva de Salamanca – with every character played by a single Merolico, the archetype of a traveling salesman in Mexico.3 And yet, EFE TRES Teatro, a young company based in Mexico City and founded in 2012, has created a raucous romp in El merolico, moving through these entremeses, using only a few props and some minor costume changes, so that the actor, in this case Fernando Villa Proal, can play several characters at once. The paradoxical brilliance of this company is that they can take the most minimalist of ideas and create a spectacularly intricate performance, one that would make Cervantes himself proud. As will be discussed below, the company is able to take pieces that are supposedly “unrepresentable” and with their magical touch, turn them into a commentary on the very elements that fascinated Cervantes and continue to captivate those of us who work on Spanish classical theater even today: metatheatricality; the blurred lines between authorship and character; and the thin veil between reality and fiction. Although it is not the company’s desire to be prescriptive in their adaptations, ultimately the spectator is confronted with some of the most troubling questions of our time, namely the rampant dissemination of “fake news” via social media and the difficulty to distinguish between truth and lies.Item Research recast(ed): Following up with Dr. Erin Cowling(2022) Ekelund, Brittany; Cave, Dylan; Cowling, ErinToday we follow up on Dr. Erin Cowling’s research with Spanish theatre, including an exciting new foray into the subdiscipline of Siglo Latinx.Item Research recast(ed): S1E6 - A conversation with Dr. Erin Cowling(2021) Ekelund, Brittany; Cave, Dylan; Cowling, ErinToday we learn about chocolate, the meshing of scholarly and creative activities, and discuss early modern and contemporary Spanish theatre with Dr. Erin Cowling, an Associate Professor and Discipline Coordinator of Spanish in the Department of Humanities at MacEwan University. Erin has worked with directors, actors and other artists from around the world, adapting early modern Spanish plays (Think Shakespeare but in Spanish) for modern audiences, and she also had two books published this year (including one on Chocolate!).Item Resisting complacency; or, "why would you study that?”(2017) Cowling, ErinThere is perhaps no more cringe-inducing moment in a conversation for a scholar of the arts or humanities than when the question “What are you going to do with that? comes from a well-meaning family member or pre-graduate-school friend. Granted, the relevance of studying something such as, say, fourhundred-year-old Spanish plays might not be immediately obvious to the uninitiated. Those of us who study the comedia, however, believe that the comedia is not only interesting in and of itself as a window into the social mores and intrigues of its day, but that these works still have something to say about society in the twenty-first century, as well.Item "Sois de diablos": portraying indigenous female characters on the golden age stage(2015) Cowling, ErinThe essay discusses three theoretical approaches to one of the most neglected groups of the time: indigenous women. Indigenous women, as historical figures, were mostly erased from the record. When Golden Age authors wished to reinterpret historical events, particularly those having to do with the conquest, the female indigenous characters were the least complex characters through whom critiques could be voiced. The three potential theoretical approaches to the characterization of the indigenous woman in Early Modern Spanish theatre that I am proposing are the “Other as Other,” the “Other as Same,” and the “Double Other.” The section on “Other as Other” looks at the ways in which female indigenous characters were portrayed in oppositional and exotic roles; “Other as Same” discusses the portrayal of indigenous women as so similar to Spanish women as to be indistinguishable; and the “Double Other” analyzes characters that were given traits that belonged to women on both sides of the Atlantic. All three of these were used strategically by the playwrights to critique not only the conquest, but also Spanish society and members of the ruling class on both sides of the Atlantic. (EAC)