Don Juan Tenorio

For over one hundred years the play Don Juan Tenorio has been performed the first week of November in theaters all across the Spanish speaking world. Yes, THE Don Juan. Well, the first play with the Don Juan character was El Burlador de Sevilla by Tirso de Molina (1630) and Tenorio by José Zorilla came later (1844). The final scene in a cemetery gains the play its spot on the calendar. Don Juan is such a dissolute that he not only seduced many women (for which he is so well-known in the English speaking world) but he also won a bet that he, rather than his friend Don Luis, would kill more men in one year. The statue of the last man he killed, the father of Doña Inés, the girl he was intended to marry, comes "alive" when Don Juan visits the cemetery, grabs him and pulls him toward hell. Does virtuous Doña Inés (who had died of sorrow) redeem him and pull him to heaven instead? As I recall from lit class, this is still being debated.
We saw the play last weekend in the Teatro Hidalgo, just across the Alameda from us. The scenery, costumes, and acting were all fine, but the curtain call even better. It was the final performance for an actor who had played the role of Don Juan for forty-six years! (Another actor played the younger Don Juan.) His emotional address to the audience made us all even more glad that we had played a part in carrying on the tradition. Ars gratia artis.