Acotación as Literature or Performance Blueprint
In a 25-minute mock exam, a candidate must answer a 4-mark question: 'Are stage directions part of the dramatic text or only a performance script?' The candidate has underlined a stage direction from a set work: 'El espacio escénico está dividido por un muro; a la derecha, una habitación; a la izquierda, un patio.' The candidate's draft says: 'Las acotaciones no son texto dramático porque el público no las oye; solo sirven al director.' The teacher's feedback says the answer is 'too binary' and must distinguish texto dramático from texto espectacular (Ubersfeld) and use at least one example of a stage direction that carries thematic meaning. The question is worth 4 marks, but the candidate has already spent 10 minutes on a plot summary. The candidate has 30 lines and must not use external sources.
1. Why is the draft's claim that stage directions are not dramatic text insufficient? Give a criterion an examiner would accept.
Read the worked answer
The draft confuses two different questions: (a) whether acotaciones are spoken or audible in performance, and (b) whether they belong to the dramatic text as a literary construct. The fact that the audience does not hear them does not make them non-textual; it makes them a specific semiotic layer. A stronger answer distinguishes texto dramático (dialogue plus didascalias, read by the reader and actualised by the director) from texto espectacular (the performance text, including lighting, gesture and sound). Ubersfeld's distinction does not say directions are 'not literature'; it says they are instructions that become signs in performance. The examiner wants a criterion: a stage direction is literary when it produces meaning that cannot be reduced to technique, for example a wall that divides space and symbolises honour, or a closed door that creates off-stage tension. The candidate should say: 'Acotaciones are part of the dramatic text when they carry semantic and structural information; they are technical when they only prescribe a practical effect.' That avoids the binary.
2. Rewrite the thesis sentence and add a two-sentence justification using a stage direction from a play you know.
Read the worked answer
Thesis: 'Las acotaciones forman parte del texto dramático porque construyen el espacio simbólico y condicionan la lectura, aunque solo se actualicen plenamente en la puesta en escena.' Justification: 'En La casa de Bernarda Alba, la indicación de paredes gruesas y puertas cerradas no es un simple dato técnico: organiza la claustrofobia y el control social. Si se suprime esa acotación, el lector pierde una información que el diálogo solo sugiere.' The reasoning: the thesis is not 'both are true' in a vague sense; it states a function and a limit. The example must be analysed, not just named. The candidate should avoid saying 'the director decides everything' because that erases the author's textual choices. The two sentences do two jobs: one names the semantic function, the other shows what is lost if the direction is removed. This is what turns a descriptive answer into an argument.
3. How would you mark the difference between an acotación that is literary and one that is merely technical? Give a test.
Read the worked answer
Use a removal test and a redundancy test. Removal: if deleting the direction leaves the scene's meaning intact, it is probably technical; if deleting it removes a spatial, symbolic or characterising clue, it is literary. Redundancy: if the direction merely repeats what the dialogue already says, such as 'sale', it is technical; if it contradicts or complicates the dialogue, it is literary. Example: 'Telón' is technical; 'Las paredes son gruesas' is literary because it constructs the prison motif. A second test is readerly: does the direction address a reader's imagination or only a stage crew's execution? The best answers combine both tests and avoid an absolute either/or. The examiner rewards a criterion that can be applied to an unseen fragment, not a definition memorised from a glossary.