THE DANCE OF LOS JUAN RANAS OR THE HYPERBOLE OF METATHEATRE

Abstract

The work focuses on a dance that, as an important part of the seventeenth-century Spanish short theater, is characterized by its marked metatheatrical entity. Los Juan Ranas, of anonymous author, has been recently published again -and thus rescued from its almost inevitable centenary ostracism- with a brief comment that does not explore the density and the pervasiveness of its peculiar overtheatralization. Eight actresses with their real names want to replace Juan Rana, performing mask of Cosme Perez, the most famous comic actor of the period mentioned. Challenged to do so by three well-known actors that will perform the role of judges, they all want “enjuanranarse,” echoing his extraordinary acting skills. The hypothesis of the work is that through various formalizations (theater in the theater, intertextual references, explicit references to the work of the actor), the metatheatre provides an orientation of meanings whose axial point deals with actresses and actors who play of themselves. While everything ends with frolic and dancing because of the birth of the Infante Felipe Próspero, this fact fails to hide that the real tribute was paid to Juan Rana and behind him to these celebrated actresses, able to show with high ductility the complex and multiple identity of the actor par excellence, exalted by the people and royalty. In front of this great metatheatre hyperbole, the text makes the boundaries between illusion and reality vanish. In comic key, this remarkable but apparently innocuous minor play points to one of the major questions that obsessed the seventeenth century.