Loa (Spanish play)
A loa is a short theatrical piece, a prologue, written to introduce plays of the Spanish Golden Age or Siglo de Oro during the 16th and 17th centuries. These plays included Comedia and autos sacramentales. The main purposes for the loa included initially capturing the interest of the audience, pleading for their attention throughout the play, and setting the mood for the rest of the performance. This Spanish prologue is specifically characterized by praise and laudatory language for various people and places, often the royal court for example, to introduce the full-length play. The loa was also popular with Latin American or "New World" playwrights during the 17th and 18th centuries through Spanish colonization.
Purpose
During the 16th century, public performances of comedias in Madrid, Spain would begin at 2pm in courtyards and later corrales. Audiences would arrive early and vendors would sell food. Soon these audiences would become impatient and start loudly hissing, whistling and shouting. One hour before the performance, musicians came onto the stage to sing a ballad and immediately after, an actor or member of the company came on stage to "echar la loa" or "throw out praise" by reciting a loa. Most comedia playwrights also wrote loas asking the audience for silence to enjoy the afternoon of theatre.Loas sometimes did, but often didn't have any relation to the full-length play being presented. Loas appeared in two distinct forms. The first was in a monologue form and the second was in the form of a short dramatic scene.
In order to gain the audience's attention and appreciation, one could commend the story or the author; reprimand negative critics or thank those that were positive, and the audiences present that day; discuss and argue about the play that was to be presented. The third method was not often used because audiences would be told the outcome of the play before they were able to hear it. In turn, the Spanish loa was created as a mixture of all of these methods of achieving audience appreciation before the full-length play began.
Spanish writer, literary theorist, and critic, Armando Cotarelo Valledor classified Spanish loas into these five categories:Loas sacramentals were used before autos sacramentales, or allegorical religious plays.Loas a Jesucristo, la Virgen y los Santos , because of their themes, were considered strictly religious used to open religious festivals and for Christmas.Loas cortesanas were used in theatre festivals, sometimes represented Kings, and were used in comedias.Loas para casa particulares were used to celebrate familial festivities such as weddings and baptisms and were similar to the previous categorization, but themes focused on dukes, counts, and other dignities of the time instead of Kings.Loas de presentación de compañias were, for example, a dialogue between with actors in the play and the playwright. These often introduced the actors and the characters they played in comedias.
History of the Loa
Bartolomé de Torres Naharro , Spanish dramatist, is the earliest known writer of Spanish comedias and of the introductory monologue. In Naharro's volume of plays, Propaladia, he uses what is called an introito as a prologue spoken by a comic shepherd. Furthermore, traces of the beginnings of the introitos are seen in medieval mystery plays of the 15th Century in Spain in the eclogues, short poems, of Juan del Encina using a similar comic shepherd character within a Christmas play. Introitos and argumentos'', another similar form of prologue used by Naharro, are both early forms of the loa that provide a summary or explanation of the comedia that follows it.Loas in Spain: Autos Sacramentales
Autos or autos sacramentales were sacred plays, as opposed to the secular comedias of the time. These plays continued from medieval Christian morality and mystery plays.Calderón de la Barca
Calderón wrote loas specifically for plays that had been previously written and for his own plays that were autos sacramentales. His loas were used specifically to understand the particular play that followed. An example is in his loa to Los tres mayores Prodigos. In addition to allegorical autos such as for the mystery of the Eucharist, Calderón de la Barca also wrote secular plays for the royal court that included his Loa for Andrómeda y Perseo, which used scenery drawings and machinery effects created by the stage architect Baccio del Bianco.
Loas in Latin America
A 1551 Peninsular Corpus Christi play shows the earliest recorded use of the word loa, as we know, regarding a dramatic prologue in Latin America. Until 1581, the loa was used in religious drama. Loas gained popularity in the "New World" by the 17th century because playwrights attached to the viceregal courts from Spain were aiming to flatter these patrons as well as the monarchs of Spain. Later 18th century "New World" loas contained some of the first references to problems in the Americas navigating class structures with the emergence of a hierarchy based on race that included Criollo, Indios, Mestizos, and more. Monologues appeared in laudatory prologues or introductions as loas in the plays of Hispanic America and are called elogios dramaticos in Brazil.Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana is said to have written hundreds of loas or autos and for comedias in Peru and New Spain but only 18 remain. She is the most prolific writer of loas in Spanish America, having written 18 of the 36 extant loas. Of the loas we have, 12 are secular, celebrating birthdays of the royal family and praising the royal court of Spain. Two more of the loas similarly celebrate secular special events, and the last four are sacred loas that promote Christian practices among the indigenous people of Latin America. The most notable of these sacred loas is Loa para el Auto de el Divino Narciso. The allegorical characters of El Occidente and La América represent the indigenous people, while the characters La Religion and El Zelo symbolize the Spanish Christians.
Fernán González de Eslava
Loas by a Mexican playwright, Fernán González de Eslava were used for eight of his plays which mirrored the first laudatory style loas from Spain. González de Eslava’s loas are all in the same monologue style, opening with praise for a Viceroy in Latin America, a saint, or a sacrament. They then give a summary of the play, and always end with the request for the audience to pay attention and be silent.
Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo
Peruvian playwright, Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, wrote four known loas for royal festivals in Peru and became well known by the 18th century. The sometimes criticism of artificial praise that comes from the form of the loa is especially evident with these royal feast performances. In particular, de Peralta Barnuevo’s loa for his play Triunfos de amor y poder '''' which was commissioned by Don Diego Ladrón de Guevara, the Bishop of Quito and Viceroy of Peru uses characters of Apollo, Neptune, the winds, muses, nymphs, land, air, and sea to praise the Spanish King Philip V and Guevara himself.