Play Review - La falsa criada

La Falsa Criada was presented last Tuesday in the theatre of Larcomar. The play consisted of two acts. The plot of the play is about a woman that dresses as a man to see if the man she is going to marry is good enough.

My hypothesis is that characterization helped more than stage elements to perform the women dressed as a man.

To start with I’m going to focus in the physical characterization. This character who dressed as a man had the same costume, until she reveals is a woman, but even before she acts as a woman. In terms of costume it was a feminine but still was from men. This enhanced help with the performance of the woman dressed as a man because the costume was for a man, but it was still feminine. All though this element presents ambiguity it still help because a change of cloth wasn’t needed.

The hair and make-up of the main character was untied and short, and she didn’t used make-up. The physicality wasn’t much developed in this aspect, but still gave the “uni-sex” style so that the character could be seen as woman and man.

Moving more into internal characterization we could start with the way of walking. The walking of the two characters, how they stand up for example was one of the elements that more distinguish the man and the woman character. Anyway, what makes more the difference between them was the voice. The voice for the male character had a lower peach and was lest sweet than the woman voice. This two elements, voice and way of walking was what most distinguish the man and the woman.

Going into stage elements I’m going to start with props. The most important prom for the main character would be the sword. The man was always, as part of the costume even, carrying a sword. This sword although was well used by the character, and show that the woman had a dominance after all with this weapon, give masculinity to the character as the man fights and this is very stereotypic of men, they fight. The fighting with the sword helps trick the other characters in the play to make them believe he is really a man.

Another stage element would be the lights. The most important moment for the lights will be the change, the revelation of the character to a woman. The lights enhance this moment making the difference between the woman and man characters greater. It 3mphasizes the idea the man is just fake.

The music helps to enhance the same moment that the lights, but as the style of the music is not coherent it makes this transformation to loose importance. The music is also used in the play for the beginning and end of the different acts, or played and singed by the “servers”, but this doesn’t help for the performance of the woman dressed as man.

 The scenery situated us in different parts of the town; in the house, in the outsides, etc. This didn’t linked really with the idea of of the woman representing a man, but help more to situate the play.

In conclusion the voice and way of walking is what most construct the character of the woman representing the man. The other stage elements don’t really mark this difference and are either there for other theatrical purposes, as for example entertain or make it fun.