by Helen Enmundson
seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 3 August 2015
This production of the play (originally commissioned by the RSC in 2012) is directed by John Dove and features Naomi Frederick as Sister Juana, Sophia Nomvete as Juanita, Gwyneth Keyworth as Angelica, Gabrielle Lloyd as Mother Marguerita, Anthony Howell as Bishop Santa Cruz, Patrick Driver as Father Antonio and Phil Whitchirch as Archbishop Aguiar y Sejas.
The play concerns Mexico's first (17th century) playwright and poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Hieronymite nun. The convents of Mexico were the refuge of many unmarried women, and some were renowned for the sophistication of some of their nuns. Sor Juana was highly intelligent, amassing a considerable library of theological and philosophical books; she also wrote plays and poems and had the favour of the vice-regal court.
However, the arrival of a new archbishop sent from Madrid threatens the whole system of court patronage and the appreciation and commissioning of secular works from religious houses. The archbishop wishes to root out such dangerous accommodations and compromises with the world, and is especially critical of any woman who presumes to meddle in masculine affairs such as intellectual thought. With a local bishop frustrated in his hopes of preferment, who determines to use any prop that comes to hand to discomfit the archbishop, the scene is set for a critical confrontation of ideas, politics and personal hopes.
