As a junior professor of Spanish at Trinity University, Matthew D. Stroud wanted to stage a comedia from his studies about the Golden Age of Spanish Theater because it had not been presented in 250 years.
“It’s a transforming experience to see something you’ve worked on your whole life – and only read. To see it performed changes everything,” Stroud said.
But the 1981 staging of Celos aun del aire matan (Even Baseless Jealousy Can Kill) in the Chapman Center’s Great Hall not only showcased the hallmark themes of honor and love as well as the roles of women in 17th century Spain, but it was also an early indication of his dedication to comedia performance. The production earned Stroud renown among his peers for dedication and attention to every detail of the performance, from costumes to Spanish tutorials to publicity.
He rose to prominence among colleagues as one of four founders of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. The group began gathering in El Paso in the 1980s and still meets. Stroud will be a keynote speaker there this spring, delivering a talk on comedias.
That accomplishment will follow publication of a volume honoring his lifelong contributions to the field of early modern Spanish theater. Known in academic circles as an homage, or Festschrift, the tome usually is curated by graduate students as a tribute to a professor who is approaching a career milestone. Stroud, who is phasing out his time in a Trinity classroom, will end his 40-year professorial journey when he retires in 2017.
Since Trinity does not have graduate assistants to organize such a volume, two of his national academic colleagues joyfully took on the task.
Gwyn E. Campbell, professor of Spanish at Washington & Lee University, said she was in awe of Stroud even before she met him in the ‘80s, when “a wonderful friendship developed.” She said an homage for Stroud was an “absolute necessity” and recruited Amy R. Williamsen, professor of Spanish at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to help produce it.
The result is Prismatic Reflections on Spanish Golden Age Theater: Essays in Honor of Matthew D. Stroud, published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc. It contains essays grouped into five sections – as acts of a play – on topics central to Stroud’s work – including wife murder, queer studies, and the role of women in 17th century Spanish society.
Campbell said Stroud has had a “profound impact on the study of Spanish Golden Age drama, perhaps most notably as one of the first scholars to study Spanish women dramatists of the era,” along with his exemplary work in the field of queer studies.
“Matt never set out to blaze any trails in comedia studies but accomplished this feat, time and time again, as a result of his genuine intellectual curiosity, his perspicacity and, in short, his sheer brilliant mind,” Campbell said.
As a mentor, Stroud has “touched many lives: generations of students at Trinity University and many scholars in the field today,” Campbell said, adding, “I am far from alone in my indebtedness to him not just for his ground-breaking work, but for his generosity of spirit, and his support and encouragement as well.”
Stroud returned the compliments, saying the 28 authors in the homage are scholars who are brilliant in their own right. Several essays were written in honor of his career interests, which he characterized as periodically “striking out in different directions.”
In discussing the topic of wife murder (uxoricide), Stroud said that when read, a play based on the husband’s point of view was likely to miss any subversive motives. However, voice inflections and the way in which certain lines were played might convey a completely different, and possibly satirical, message. In 17th century Spain, for example, life for women was quite restricted, but a properly-acted play often served as a foil, he noted. “As a social phenomenon, theater worked as a release for social unrest,” Stroud said.
Stroud said he is moved by the homage and was rendered speechless when Campbell proposed it. “It’s quite an honor,” he said.
Honors are not new to Stroud, professor of modern languages and literatures, who received the Z.T. Scott Faculty Fellowship for outstanding teaching and advising in 1999, was named a Murchison Professor of Spanish from 2011 to 2014, and received the Trinity University Distinguished Achievement Award for Scholarship in 2014.
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