Then, slowly, he rises and smiles diabolically, suggesting that although Don Juan, the individual, may have been vanquished, his spirit lives on. While in traditional productions Don Juan is carried down to hell about three-fourths through the third act, in Danno's the final tableau portrays the young man lying dead in the arms of Catalinón. In the English-language production at the Source Theater in Washington, D.C., director Joe Danno modernizes the setting, transforming Don Juan into a spoiled, bored rich kid who takes drugs and seduces women. In such a world, Don Juan, the introspective rebel, is more a hero than a villain. The final tableau is asymmetrical, creating the impression of an unbalanced, irrational world governed by rigid codes of conduct from which no deviation is tolerated. Cuban director René Buch exploits the play's underlying themes of social decay, political corruption, and sexual deviation in the Repertorio Español production, but unlike the Spanish and Mexican versions, this interpretation offers no moral resolution. At the end of the play, the gesticulating, crow-like figures are gone, and the monarch occupies center stage, thereby "anchoring" society. Throughout the play, a chorus of masked, puppet-like characters communicates the notion that Spanish society has degenerated into a farce. In contrast, the final tableaux of the production of the Escuela de Arte Teatral of the Instituto de Bellas Artes de México convey a clear censure of the social anarchy that Don Juan represents and the restoraton of order under the Catholic monarch.
In the final tableaux the tone shifts from humorous to serious so many times that the impact of Don Juan's damnation is diluted. The production of the Escuela de Bellas Artes of the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua imbues the play with a distinctly Mexican flavor, but presents a less coherent view than Pérez Puig's. The message is that the entire society is caught in a circular labyrinth from which there is no escape.
The camera moves slowly across the line of mourners, which includes the entire cast, thereby creating an image of cohesiveness. The circular structure conveys a restoration of order, and at the same time, a warning. The Radiotelevisión version, directed by Gonzalo Pérez Puig, ends with a replay of the opening scene. By studying the final tableaux of five modern productions, we can begin to appreciate the wide range of interpretations to which the play lends itself. While some modern directors have viewed El burlador de Sevilla from a traditional, Catholic perspective, others have stressed its moral ambiguity. A director approaches a play differently from a scholar in that a director must read backwards, considering first the ending, the culmination of the action, and then building toward the finale. Campbell's blank verse translation.The final tableaux of a play create the impression with which the audience will come away from the theater. 1978) by Walcott is an adaptation of El burlador de Sevilla, based on R.
Molière's version was translated by Christopher Hampton (pub. Browning's Don Juan see Fifine at the Fair, and for Shaw's see Man and Superman. His injured wife is Elvira.ĭon Juan is also the subject of plays by Shadwell (The Libertine), Goldoni, Pushkin, and Montherlant, and of a poem by Byron. Don Juan is the proverbial heartless and impious seducer. The statue comes, seizes Juan, and delivers him to devils. Juan and his cowardly servant Leporello visit the tomb, when the statue is seen to move its head. A statue of the commander is erected over his tomb. Having attempted to ravish Doña Anna, the daughter of the commander of Seville, he is surprised by the father, whom he kills in a duel. According to a Spanish story apparently first dramatized by Gabriel Téllez (who wrote under the name ‘Tirso da Molina’) in El burlador de Sevilla, and subsequently by Molière in Le Festin de pierre and in Mozart's Don Giovanni, was Don Juan Tenorio, of Seville.