Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
2000
Abstract
In 1990, Francisco Portes brought his Teatro Pequeño to the Chamizal in El Paso and gave the audience his usual high quality performance of Moreto' s El Iindo don Diego. Those who attended the performance or have seen it on videotape know that Portes' s portrayal of Diego was nothing less than magisterial. He minces, he scolds, he blusters, he fusses, completely obsessed with his appearance and his affect on others. Don Diego's entry scene established his character and the comic tone for the entire play. In it, Diego converses with a very straight-laced foil, Don Mendo, a much more typical galán. The more Diego says how his incredible physical beauty, enhanced by personal hygiene, clothing and other accoutrements, sends women into swoons, overcome by his masculine presence, the more Mendo, in both direct dialogue and asides, lets us know that he not only disbelieves Diego's claim to be a lady-killer, but he thinks that Diego is a mad, ridiculous, fool.
Editor
María José Delgado & Alain Saint-Saëns
Publisher
University Press of the South
City
New Orleans
ISBN
9781889431536
Repository Citation
Stroud, M. D. (2000). Comedy, foppery, camp: Moreto's El lindo don Diego. In M. J. Delgado & A. Saint-Saëns (Ed.), Lesbianism and homosexuality in early modern Spain (pp. 177-197). University Press of the South.
Publication Information
Lesbianism and Homosexuality in Early Modern Spain