History Repeats Itself

ACT I. The Backstory.

Next month the Teatro Rosalía will be presenting a play on the legend of Saint Ero, abbot of Armenteira Monastery. The playwright is a newcomer to the genre of stage writing, but rumor has it she’s pretty good. She has already published very well-received reviews in local newspapers and on the internet. She is extremely pleased that the theater group of the university has selected her work to staged in late October, which is their kick-off month. The Grupo Bentevexo is the best in Galicia, too, which is even more reason for the playwright to be pleased.

The writer is Filomena Muruais Dato, which is not exactly the name of the writer from Ourense who was born in the nineteenth century, but it’s pretty close. They’re probably related. That’s what the young Filomena’s parents always said, and hence their daughter’s name. Filomena is so horribly antiquated - what on earth were her parents thinking when they chose it? That was why the young writer has asked to be called Mena, always, and by everyone. That desire for modernity regarding how she wanted people to call her would soon become ironic, with her first play…

Mena is young, just out of the university where she studied Filoloxía. She finished her degree in Galego-Portugués and never looked back. Because she loves her native Galicia, she travels around the area as much as possible and often stops to talk with the people in the villages. That is where she gets many of her ideas for writing and at the same time expands her knowledge of both the language and the local history. Quite simple, actually. Almost not worth a story, which is why Mena, nice and intelligent as she is, really is not the focus here.

As has already been stated, the main character of Mena’s first play is Ero. Ero was a noble who found that he and his wife were not meant to have human heirs. In the place of biological offspring, they would have spiritual ones, descendants who would carry on their name and, of course, the cult that belonged to the site. When he heard this, in 1151 Ero founded a monastery in the tiny population known as Armenteira, in the province of Pontevedra. He then became its abbot. 

“The Monk who Listened to a Bird’s Song for Three Hundred Years” is the approximate title of the song dedicated to the pious man from Armenteira in the Cantigas de Santa María, published by Afonso o Sabio, King Alphonse the Wise. This means that already in the thirteenth century the abbot from barely a hundred years before had become a legend. Here is part of the song written to honor him:

Quena Virgen ben servirá (Cantiga 103)

Como Santa Maria feze estar o monge trezentos anos ao canto da passara, porque lle pedia que lle mostrasse qual era

o ben que avian os que eran en Paraiso.

Quena Virgen ben servirá a Parayso irá.

E daquest' un gran miragre vos quer' eu ora contar,

que fezo Santa Maria por un monge, que rogar ll'ia sempre que lle mostrasse qual ben en Parais' á

Quena Virgen ben servirá a Parayso irá.

What the song means is simply that whoever serves the Virgin well is going to see Paradise in the end. It was the Virgin Mary who caused the holy man to fall asleep while listening to a bird singing. Not just fall asleep, to remain asleep for three hundred years. She did this because he had begged so hard for her to show him what Paradise was like.

The miracle, which this event seems to be, is pretty much what is to be expected, since this is a religious thing. Mary answers a human’s prayers. It happens all the time. However, probably to some people Ero also sounds a little bit like Rumpelstiltskin and some say there are ties to Celtic or some other ancient mythology. In any event, the theme of a long, deep sleep is not linked to just Armenteira and it’s not just an example of faith in Christianity. In the play it is, though.

Today Armenteira is surrounded by trees and sits stilly, comfortably, among them. They are tall, slender, yet seductively lush. Greens abound. Rains may swoop down on it, but warmth and light breezes treat the roof and bell tower of the temple gently. The plains are fertile, and the coveted grapes for albariño and Barrantes wine, Padrón peppers, lettuces - all of these quilt the landscape, claiming their right to grow and grow well. The church is supposedly from the pre-Romanesque period. It is located on the western side of Mount Castrove, which sits between the valley of the Salnés and the ría (fjord, sound, estuary, firth, inlet) of Pontevedra.

In Mena Muruáis’ play, the life of the abbot is to be represented pretty much like the story all Galicians know. The ‘contemporary’ aspect is the fact that Ero awakens to fund himself, not in the fifteenth century or so, as he does in the legend. Instead, he finds himself in the twenty-first century. When he returns from the grove to the monastery, he finds changes so mind-boggling that his whole survival, and the survival of his legend, are in danger. One of the few familiar things to him might be the stone walkway and the wine terraces, but the modern houses have little resemblance to houses of the peasants Ero had known.

The actor playing the role of Saint Ero is one of the best. Young, well-built, long-locked, but able to disguise himself with skilled application of make-up and costume, Ovidio Golán is preparing for opening night way in advance. He is working hard at learning his lines, but he also visits Armenteira. In addition, he reads cantiga number 103 over and over - anything that will aid him in better understanding his character. tries to get into character. He is a dedicated thespian.

The approximately thirty minute drive from Santiago to Armenteira is perfect for a day trip, with lots of time for a mid-day meal and a side foray to a tiny group of stone houses or a hermitage. It is oddly cool but nevertheless sunny. Ovidio stops more than once to listen to the silence and breathe in the air that (strangely) makes its presence known by its weightlessness. Santa María de Armenteira goes back to the Early Middle Ages, and Ovidio slowly starts to go back with it. There is nothing to stop him from doing that. It is such a serene part of the earth, and that entrance into Ero’s mind, his world, his nature, is exactly what Ovidio has come seeking. This is the way he has always played roles. Method acting.

Ovidio finally is able to tear himself away from Armenteira at dusk, luscofusco, as the Galicians call it in their infinitely poetic language. He falls into a deep sleep. The next morning he looks up the text of the cantiga again and prints it out to carry around with him. It’s just a whim and was composed a century after the saint lived, but it makes the actor feel closer to his character nonetheless. He keeps wondering:

“Is this what my language looked like? Or is it the way only one person, King Afonso, talked?” Ovidio tries to stop asking that question and, instead, listens to several renditions of the song by different performers. It does help him stop wondering if the play should have been written in the same language, but that would probably be like asking a contemporary public to attend a play written in Chaucerian or Shakespearian English; most of them would struggle very hard to comprehend the dialogue.

Because he is a follower of Stanislavki’s acting techniques, Ovidio returns on a number of occasions to Armenteira, trying to imbibe and digest all the gentle vegetation and cushiony stones he sees during the drives. The monastery itself is historically interesting, but something about the joining of the building’s ‘arms’ is unsettling, off-putting. The actor prefers the adro or small courtyard outside the cool, thick walls, the horta or garden, and the vieiros or paths leading to the groves of fruit-bearing trees. 

The other members of the company see less of Ovidio Golán than they think they should. They know he is rehearsing his lines, but he should be rehearsing with them as well. The local peasants, the other monks, the peddler- all of those parts and others are having to rehearse with a stand-in. It’s not the same. Everybody really wants this play to be a big success, because that would help secure more funding. They literally work with a shoestring budget.

The worries cease when Ovidio returns from his fourth or fifth trip to Armenteira, looking well, enthused, and fantastically prepared. In acting, trust is big, and fortunately his colleagues have trusted him to do what was required in order to get the character right. From the moment they rehearse as a complete group, things meld perfectly and everyone is feeling at ease. They know their performance is going to be a knock-out...

ACT II. The Play.

“It is evening and all day I prayed for a sign, Holy Mother of God. I am weary of heart and soul, but am one of faith.”

“Here I am, at peace, resigned to never see Paradise, yet unwilling to give up hope. This grove of apples, pears, and plums will not let me.”

  “I can just make out the song of birds and the fluttering of their wings. Perhaps they are swallows, or doves, or wrens.”

“One of the songs is more intense, more intimate. Which bird sings so marvelously?”

“I am certain it is a lark, but a rare sort that sings at night. Its melody is like nothing else on earth... No, it is not earthly; it is divine. It has the strength and seduction of...”

“I cannot stop listening to that song of comfort, calm, restf...”

ACT III. Aftermath.

This is not what was supposed to happen. The people on stage and in the wings are frozen to their spots. Somebody should speak, but nobody does and nobody wants to.

“Ero has fallen asleep!”

“That’s Ovidio, not Ero, silly!”

“Right. Ero is just a character in a myth. He supposedly fell asleep for three hundred years because of a bird. That’s what this play is about. I know that.”

“So... now that we know this is not Ero here leaning up against a rock, why is Ovidio still sleeping in Ero’s position? Isn’t that just a little odd?”

And the truth be told, Ero, or Ovidio, has been asleep for over an hour. He shows absolutely no signs of planning to wake up soon, either. The other actors have ad-libbed for a while, or did improv theater, but they finally are running out of creativity. The production, they have to admit, has come to a grinding halt. They discuss what to do with Ovidio a minute longer, then announce:

“Haha. We’ve just been informed that Ovidio - er, Ero - well, one of the two, will be sleeping for three hundred years. There really is no need for the audience to wait here that long. We can let you know when he wakes up. Thank you all for coming.”

Well! It seems the audience is quite impressed by the comical twist at the end of the play. Having everything come to an end that way really has lessened the distance between actors and public. That puts the characters right in close with both groups. A real intense experience, when you think about it, right?

The audience, on its feet and exclaiming, also claps with an enthusiasm that gradually is transformed into something ferocious. They are angry because they have come to see the play that is in the advertisements and street posters. They know it is supposed to offer the encounter by Ero with society after eleven centuries have passed, not just the three centuries of the legend.

The angriest, or maybe most upset of the attendees were the ones who were very concerned about the ending:

“We’re going to have to wait a pretty long time to find out how the play ends.”

“I bet we might be waiting to hear for a couple centuries.”

“What are we going to wear then? I mean, I haven’t a clue what the styles will be then. I mean, two, three hundred years from now?

EPILOGUE

This story has been about a play gone wrong, or gone right, depending on how you feel about it. The intention has been to bring you the story in situ and en vivo, but given that the play is over, this story has also reached its end.

Just one last thing:

Please respond with your contact information so we can let you know when the guy, whoever he is, wakes up. It could take three hundred years for that to happen and you might move or get a new email address.