The Fake Astrologer by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

First produced: c. 1624, as El astrólogo fingido; first published, 1633 (English translation, 1668)

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Farce

Time of plot: Seventeenth century

Locale: Madrid

Principal characters

• María, a girl of Madrid
• Juan de Medrano, an impoverished young nobleman
• Don Carlos, his friend
• Don Diego, a wealthy nobleman in love with María
• Morón, his servant
• Beatriz, María’s servant
• Leonardo, María’s father
• Doña Violante, a woman in love with Juan

The Story:

Looking from the balcony of her Madrid home, María watches Juan de Medrano ride by, courting her from a distance as he did for two years, and she is moved to confess to her servant Beatriz that she much prefers him to the more aggressive Don Diego. Juan is at last tired of seeing María only at a distance. That afternoon he comes to call, with the excuse that next day he is leaving for the wars in Flanders. María postpones their farewells until that night, when Beatriz will bring Juan to her.

Don Diego, too, decides on direct action. He arrives with a highly rhetorical demand for her affections. Claiming that she is unable to understand his proposal, María turns him down in the same kind of jargon. Angered, Don Diego directs his servant Morón to try to learn from Beatriz how María might be approached. Though the gift of a gold chain does not open her mouth, Morón knows that Beatriz will in time tell him everything.

Juan wants his friend Don Carlos to spread the story of his departure for the army, while actually he plans to stay in lodgings in Madrid. As a first step, he sends his farewells to Doña Violante, an errand that Don Carlos performs gladly because, with Juan away, he thinks he can win the lady for himself.

The next morning, as she sneaks Juan out of María’s house, materialistic Beatriz reflects on how silly aristocratic ladies are. They will not be seen talking to a man on the street for fear of gossip, but they are prepared to entertain him secretly in their rooms. This time, however, the assignation does not remain a secret. Morón worms out of Beatriz all the details of Juan’s visit and runs with them to his master. Don Diego elaborates on the event as he passes it on to his friend Antonio, and the story grows further as Antonio tries to elicit the true facts. Exasperated and resentful, Don Diego decides to confront María.

When Don Diego mentions Juan’s nocturnal visit, María is sure that her servant gossiped. To protect Beatriz, whom he loves, Morón explains that Don Diego is an astrologer who can summon up demons and who knows the past and the future. Don Diego does not deny this claim. In fact, when María’s father, Leonardo, comes up to them, he predicts an impoverished husband for her. The father, who had experiences with magicians, does not believe in them, and he would have unmasked Don Diego had Morón not cleverly saved his master from disclosure.

Don Diego’s friends, passing on the story, convince Doña Violante of Don Diego’s powers, and she begs him to materialize the absent Juan. To his protest that his power cannot cross water, she replies that, according to a letter just delivered by Don Carlos, he is in Zaragoza. At Don Diego’s prompting, Doña Violante writes Juan a letter inviting him to visit her. The note, mysteriously delivered by Don Carlos, brings Juan to her house. There he frightens her and he becomes thoroughly confused, since he knows nothing about the pretended astrologer.

Juan is more eager than ever to see María. Since Leonardo does not know him, he presents himself as a friend of Leonardo’s brother, just arrived from Zaragoza. María gives him a ribbon with a costly pin and tells him to sell it in order to provide himself with spending money. Then, scheming to bring him back to her, she tells her father that the pin was stolen. Leonardo hurries to consult Don Diego. Since Beatriz already babbled the new developments to Morón, Don Diego appears to have miraculous powers, and Leonardo goes in search of Juan. When he is discovered, Juan, fearing for María’s reputation, confesses to the theft. Angered, Leonardo refuses Juan’s request to marry María.

His supposed magic prowess brings Don Diego nothing but trouble. Even his servant claims a share in his strange powers and tries to send another servant on an aerial journey to his home town. Then Don Diego angers Doña Violante by refusing to give her a spell with which to kill Juan and María. He is, moreover, no further advanced in his own courtship. The conflicting prophecies he gives, hoping that some might come true, cause everyone to turn against him. Finally, when Beatriz explains how he secured his information, the mock astrologer renounces all claims to magic powers, but not before he accomplishes one good deed. When he reveals the whole truth about the jewel robbery, María and Juan are reunited.

Bibliography

Benabu, Isaac. Reading for the Stage: Calderón and His Contemporaries. Rochester, N.Y.: Tamesis, 2003. Analyzes playtexts for works by Calderón and contemporary playwrights. A playtext is usually read by the theater company at the beginning of a play’s production and provides the playwright’s directions for staging his or her work. Benabu’s examination of playtexts discusses the religiosity of Spanish theater in the Golden Age, Calderón’s devotional comedies, and the character of Pedro Crespo in The Mayor of Zalamea.

Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. The Fake Astrologer. Translated by Max Oppenheimer. Lawrence, Kans.: Coronado Press, 1976. An accessible English edition of the work, with the Spanish and English versions on facing pages. Contains bibliographical references.

Cohen, Walter. Drama of a Nation: Public Theater in Renaissance England and Spain. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985. Good analysis of the differences and similarities between the national theaters of both countries. Discusses the borrowing of plots and characters, which in the case of The Fake Astrologer is between Calderón and John Dryden by way of Pierre Corneille.

Heigl, Michaela. Theorizing Gender, Sexuality, and the Body in Calderonian Theater. New Orleans, La.: University Press of the South, 2001. Focuses on the transvestites, scolds, sodomites, monsters, and other “deviant” characters in Calderón’s plays, demonstrating how they embody the idea of excess and subvert the boundaries between the sexes and between different social classes. Heigl maintains that these characters represent the inherent corruption and perversion in society.

Nicoll, Allardyce. A History of Restoration Drama, 1660-1700. 3d rev. ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1940. Traces the links between Spanish and British theater. Notes that Charles II was interested in Calderónian theater.

Rodríguez Cuadros, Evangelina. “Pedro Calderón de la Barca.” In The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, edited by David T. Gies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. An overview of Calderón’s life and work, placing his work within the broader context of Spanish literature.

Thacker, Jonathan. A Companion to Golden Age Theatre. Rochester, N.Y.: Tamesis, 2007. An introductory overview of Spanish Golden Age theater. In addition to a chapter on Calderón, the book examines the work of other playwrights, describes the different types of plays produced in this era, and traces the growth and maturation of Spanish theater.

Wardropper, B. W. “Calderón’s Comedy and His Serious Sense of Life.” In Hispanic Studies in Honor of Nicholson B. Adams, edited by John Esten Keller and Karl-Ludwig Selig. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. A study by one of the foremost scholars of Calderónian theater that discusses the playwright’s serious purpose lurking behind such comic scenes as the “clavileño” episode of The Fake Astrologer.

Wilson, Margaret. Spanish Drama of the Golden Age. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press, 1969. A good starting point for any discussion of Spanish Golden Age theater. Includes detailed footnotes and a list of English translations.