Fortune and Misfortune on the Stage: Ângela de Azevedo’s Marian Comedia in the Classroom and Beyond

Abstract: Ângela de Azevedo’s late seventeenth-century Dicha y desdicha del juego y devoción a la Virgen has received less performance-related attention than the writer’s other two extant works. This comedia, however, has great potential both for use in the classroom and for performance onstage. The work possesses appealing commonalities with El muerto disimulado from a plot perspective and can additionally serve as a didactic bridge to early-modern religious ideas. Asking students to consider Dicha y desdicha as a performed piece opens the door for an interdisciplinary approach and to examine historical themes as varied and rich as the changing role of nobility, sumptuary law, religious iconography, and the role of women as artists and creators. This article focuses on representations of class distinctions and religious iconography, adopting a speculative and forward-facing approach. It outlines what my own approach will be to teaching this play in an upcoming course.