Moratin's Creation of the Comic Role for the Older Actress

Abstract

It is commonplace to observe that there are no mothers in the casts of Spanish Golden Age comedias. There are rare exceptions, but in such cases the mother is young. For example, in Tirso de Molina's La prudencia en la mujer (Prudence in Woman), the queen Dona María de Molina is the mother of a small child. As a general rule, the female characters of the Spanish comedia are young damas, or ladies. They are looked after by fathers and brothers, by male servants, or by young female servants, but not by a mother, an aunt, or even an older servant.