- Announcer: Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods"
is provided by
Arcadia Books,
Dane Arts,
Nancy A. McDaniel,
Orange Tree Imports,
Wilson Creek Pottery,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
[whippoorwills singing]
[crickets chirping]
[playful classical music]
[birds warbling]
- Brenda DeVita: Welcome, everybody, hello!
We're so glad to have you back
for our second Out of the Woods play reading series.
Thank you so much for this coming up tonight,
when you would be gloriously sitting up the hill
to see a show normally,
and it means so much to us
that you've decided to join us tonight on Zoom.
So, thank you so much.
It's hard to believe that it's already September,
isn't it?
Student matinees would be going on up the hill,
10,000 students climbing up there to see shows,
and we'd be sitting with our blankets and our mittens
and our hot cocoa watching a play
So, thank you so much for being here with us.
It's-- much gratitude!
If you've--
[bird crowing] Nice! [laughs]
I'm outdoors, can't help myself--
If you've been with us for a few years, you know,
and many of you of you have been with us
a long time at APT.
I can see by the participants list,
that you've been noticing our growing exploration
of new voices and new stories at APT.
And the question we keep asking ourselves at APT
is to examine,
'what does it mean to be a classic,
to be a classical play?'
And we're glad you're on that journey with us.
We're excited to invite you to this reading series,
particularly because
we'll be exploring plays and playwrights
who are black, indigenous, or people of color
and collaborating with BIPOC artists and actors.
It feels vital in this moment.
In fact, I cannot think of a more important mission
than to really push into the questions of ourselves
about what it is to be a human being
and how to keep ourselves moving forward on the path
towards a more equitable theater space
and hopefully a more equitable world.
We're happy to be sharing this play reading with you tonight,
The Sins of Sor Juana.
The play is loosely-based
on the life of a Mexican poet and philosopher
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
who lived in the latter half of the 17th century
and would go on to be considered
the first feminist writer of the Americas,
while being a nun in a convent of Santa Paula,
where she remained until her death.
In the play, playwright Karen Zacarías.
pieces together what little historical facts we know about
Sor Juana to speculate what her life could have been.
The play is written in the style of magical realism,
and it blends the memories from Juana's teenage years
as a burgeoning intellect and poet
with her present-day life in the convent.
Excited for you guys to see it!
After the show, please join us for a Talk Back
where you'll meet the actors and the artistic team,
and I'm so excited to introduce you tonight,
our director, Jake Penner,
who we are thrilled to say,
has joined us at the--
as a permanent member of our APT artistic staff
this spring as an artistic associate.
So, welcome, Jake,
and thank you so much for heading this project tonight
as a director.
In the cast, I also wanna take a moment
to thank the extraordinary Melisa Pereyra,
who is playing Sor Juana
and who is-- simply in her time here at APT
has worked tirelessly and fiercely
to help APT increasingly speak to the times and of the times.
And I cannot thank you enough, Melisa, for your hard work
and we look so much to the future with you.
Also, I would love to thank the rest of the cast.
You may recognize a couple of them.
Cher Álvarez and Triney Sandoval,
who have graced our stages here at APT in the past
in recent seasons,
And also delighted and thrilled to introduce you
a whole group of new actors tonight.
So, welcome, everyone.
I wanna thank and recognize the design team
and production team for this production,
which is Nate Stuber,
who was a design consultant on this piece,
Joy Lanceta Coronel, who's our voice and text coach,
Jacki Singleton, the person running the whole show,
As stage manager Evelyn Matten, our PSM at APT.
Carey Cannon, artistic associate,
who does everything that anyone ever asked her to do,
with a smile on her face, and brilliant Carey, thank you
And a shout out to our incredible year-round staff,
who just keeps saying 'yes' to everything that we ask to do
on the artistic side of things
and we really appreciate you all.
Always, I wanna say thank you to our season sponsors.
At this time when everything is so uncertain
to be able to be certain
that you are with us and supporting us,
there's not enough gratitude.
I wanna say thank you to you.
We couldn't do it without you.
And I wanna thank PBS Wisconsin,
who is producing this series with us
and these will be online in the coming months.
So, thank you, PBS Wisconsin, for your support.
There'll be a short intermission tonight.
So, without further ado,
I wanna just invite you to enjoy tonight's reading
of The Sins of Sor Juana by Karen Zacarías.
- NARRATOR: The Sins of Sor Juana.
Xóchitl drags a huge trunk on stage.
She lights a candle.
- XÓCHITL: This is a poem by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
Juanita.
With all the hazards of the sea in mind,
no one would dare embark
if in advance the dangers were foreseen
she would tread not in the dark.
If the rider were to consider
the furious thrust of the beast below,
she would never saddle the wild fury,
no human hand could rein the flow.
But if one chose brave audacity
despite the perils therein
and steered a blazing chariot
to reach Apollo's breath,
then she would live life, its all
not blandly endure her days 'til death.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl gets into the trunk
and closes the lid.
Setting, late 1600s, New Spain, Mexico.
A small cot, a desk, a trunk,
a free-standing closet and a doorway with a door.
This setting serves as Juana's room in the convent
in Juana's present and her room in the palace Juana's past.
- JUANA: Hurry, María.
Hurry!
- NOVICE: But, Sor Juana, your visitors.
- JUANA: Will have to wait.
Where did I put that letter?
Is the rider still there?
- NOVICE: Yes, Sister.
- JUANA: Here it is.
This needs to be sent outside the city.
Give it to the rider, he can deliver it.
- NOVICE: A letter to the new Bishop of Puebla?
But if Father Núnez asks?
- JUANA: El Padre cannot ask for what he does not see.
Carry the letter for the bishop inside your sleeve.
- NOVICE: Dios mío.
- JUANA: After you deliver the letter,
give the ladies my pardon.
I will not be returning to the salon today.
- NOVICE: Pray tell, what have you written?
- JUANA: Nothing.
My opinion, María.
- NOVICE: Why?
- JUANA: I disagree with the new Bishop of Puebla.
- NOVICE: You disagree with the Bishop?
- JUANA: I think God wants women to learn.
- NOVICE: Why?
- JUANA: Because why else would we ask why?
María, this is for you.
- NOVICE: For me?
I shouldn't.
- JUANA: Knowledge should be shared.
- NOVICE: We are only allowed to read the Bible.
- JUANA: No, take it, María.
You must never be afraid to learn.
- NOVICE: Thank you, Sor Juana.
- JUANA: Now take the letter for the new Bishop
and send it with the rider.
Now go, go.
- NARRATOR: A strange wind fills the room.
[in Latin] - SARA: BREVIS EST AMOR
EN NOSTRA VITA CERTIS EST DOLOR
- NOVICE: SED IN TE MATER
EN TE SANCTA SORROR
CRESIT FELICITAS
- SARA: BREVIS EST AMOR EN NOSTRA VITA
CERTIS EST DOLOR
- PADRE: SED IN TE MATER
EN TE SANCTA SORROR
CRESIT FELICITAS
- PADRE: Dios mío, give me strength.
Sor Juana, what have you done?
- NARRATOR: Juana is sitting in her room, writing.
- JUANA: Green temptation of human life,
mad hope, a savage golden frenzy.
Glass eyes of green, hope, light, fire,
twisted sight colors our world
and heightens the desire.
Hmm.
It could be better.
[trunk knocking]
- NARRATOR: A loud knock from the trunk is heard.
[knocking]
Then we hear lots of knocks on the door.
[lots of knocks]
- JUANA: What now?
Sor Sara.
- SARA: Sor Juana
- JUANA: I'm very busy right now.
Could this wait till morning?
- FILOTHEA: May God be with you, Sor Juana.
- JUANA: Madre Filothea!
- FILOTHEA: Did we interrupt your prayers, my child?
- JUANA: Prayers are never interrupted when answered.
Please, how can I aid you today?
- FILOTHEA: My child, we are concerned.
When you are done with your duties and finished
with your salons of visitors, you always leave our sight
to spend time alone in your room.
- JUANA: Dear Madre, as you can see,
I hardly get a daylight hour to myself.
- FILOTHEA: And yet,
you should practice other activities than solitude.
- JUANA: Oh, I do.
- FILOTHEA: I know.
- SARA: Sor Juana, you and I are quite similar in age,
why, we should spend more time together cross-stitching.
You and I, sewing and talking, and talking and sewing.
Sewing for the glory of the Lord.
- JUANA: The last time I cross-stitched, I drew blood.
- SARA: Perhaps if you practiced
- JUANA: No!
Thank you, Holy Sister.
- FILOTHEA: Juana, you've been here for many years
and yet, in many ways you are renowned
in the province but unknown to us.
Sor Sara is eager to spend time with you, to be your friend.
- SARA: Very eager.
- FILOTHEA: As am I.
With age, one begins to cherish a true connection
of the mind and the heart.
- JUANA: Madre Filothea.
Why not attend one of my salons?
You too, Sor Sara, join us in our discussions of philosophy,
or mathematics or our games of poetry.
- FILOTHEA: Oh, Juana, I'm afraid we would have
nothing to contribute,
sitting with all those illustrious men and women.
- JUANA: You can learn.
Use your God-given gift.
I have all the books.
- SARA: So many books.
- JUANA: Yes, and all of them have something to teach.
Oh, where to start?
Erasmus?
Aristotle?
- FILOTHEA: Could I suggest, perhaps, this one?
- JUANA: Oh!
Sophocles, a wonderful choice.
- FILOTHEA: And that one?
- JUANA: Ah, Copernicus.
The moon, the stars, the earth, all in your hands.
Although, Galileo with the telescope has gone further,
proving Copernicus' hypotheses,
placing the sun at the center of the universe
with the Earth rotating--
And however mistaken, these theories bring us closer to God
by contemplating the beauty of His labor.
- FILOTHEA: Amen.
Well, these are a start.
- SARA: But Madre Filothea, this book on her table?
- JUANA: Oh, the one that I'm reading?
It is poetry.
Góngora, no please.
Knowledge is the best weight to carry.
- FILOTHEA: So true.
- SARA: Sor Juana, can I see that one?
- JUANA: Certainly.
- SARA: Oh, and if Madre Filothea does not mind, this one.
- JUANA: With all due respect. - SARA: And those over there.
And that one on the chair!
- JUANA: Why are you taking all my books away?
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, please,
do not make this more difficult than it is.
- JUANA: All my books!
- SARA: Well, you still have the Holy Bible.
- JUANA: Dear Madre, I thought you understood!
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, believe me,
I am doing this for your sake.
- JUANA: Father Núnez will be outraged
by your misguided actions.
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, forgive us,
but we are acting on Father Núnez's behest.
- JUANA: That, that's not possible.
Many of these books are gifts from him.
Now I must see el Padre.
- FILOTHEA: I'm afraid el Padre is not available.
- SARA: He is very occupied.
- JUANA: He is my confessor!
- FILOTHEA: I know, my dear.
- JUANA: And if I cross-stitched?
- FILOTHEA: Afternoon cross-stitching with the convent sisters
would definitely meet with Father Núnez's approval.
- JUANA: Filothea, did you ever intend to read my books?
- FILOTHEA: If I must deceive you to save you, so be it.
It is my sin and cross to bear.
- SARA: Madre Filothea, we should remove the writing paper
from her desk.
- JUANA: You wish to take my writing paper?
- SARA: The quill?
The ink!
She could still write.
- JUANA: You are taking my pen and ink?
- FILOTHEA: Father Núnez forbids you to write anymore.
- JUANA: But Father Núnez promised me
I would always be allowed to write.
- FILOTHEA: What you have done is so serious,
he now forbids you from writing.
- JUANA: What have I done?
- FILOTHEA: Father Núnez will speak to you in due time.
God Bless you my child.
- SARA: This is for your own good.
You see that, don't you?
- JUANA: I am not blind.
- SARA: You will then see the charity of our actions.
- JUANA: I am not blind.
- SARA: God be with you, Sor Juana.
- JUANA: Sister?
- SARA: Yes?
- JUANA: You have forgotten to take the candle.
[Sara exhales disdainfully]
- NOVICE: Sor Sara!
Sor Sara!
The goat!
The goat is loose!
Sor Sara!
Where is Sor Sara?
- JUANA: Sor Sara just left.
- NOVICE: The goat is loose
and he's running through the kitchen!
And Sor Sara is fearless in tying him down.
Sor Juana, what happened to your room?
- JUANA: They've taken all my books.
- NOVICE: Your books?
- JUANA: And my paper and quill.
- NOVICE: Your paper and quill?
- JUANA: I am forbidden to write.
- NOVICE: Why?
What did you do?
- JUANA: I do not know.
- NOVICE: It must be something terrible if Father Núnez
forbids you to write.
What are you going to do now?
- JUANA: I do not know.
- NOVICE: I should go and catch the goat.
- JUANA: No, yes, María.
You should do what is asked of you.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl enters.
She is carrying a white piece of cloth
and a long needle with a bright piece of thread.
Lights fade.
Lights up, Sor Sara and the novice are cross-stitching.
- SARA: He is very upset.
Madre Filothea says she's never seen el Padre like that.
- JUANA: Dios mío.
- NOVICE: And he asked no, no, no,
he begged that we help him,
that we help save Sor Juana's soul.
And that is not an easy thing, you know, saving a soul,
especially one like Sor Juana's.
- NOVICE: But Sor Juana is very interesting.
A little strange, but interesting.
- SARA: I thought she was interesting, too,
many years ago when she first arrived
when we were placed in the same room.
But she stayed up half the night reading and writing.
And I tried, I tried to befriend her.
She asked to be moved, to be by herself.
It was for the best.
And Sor Juana is not as respectable
as she thinks she is.
- NOVICE: She is a sister of the church.
- SARA: What I mean to say
is that she had very low beginnings.
Hmm?
- NOVICE: Low beginnings?
- SARA: She is a natural child.
- NOVICE: [gasping] ¡Dios, mío!
No father?
- SARA: Shhh!
- NOVICE: But then how would they allow her
to enter the convent?
- SARA: Thanks to the Vicereine's influence.
- NOVICE: Ay!
So it is true!
Juana was a part of the Vicereine's court!
- SARA: Yes.
But now she is a part of a better court, the court of God.
- SARA: Of course.
Blessed are we all.
- NOVICE: Be careful.
You might miss a stitch.
- NOVICE: Sor Sara?
How did a poor, illegitimate girl
end up knowing the Vicereine?
- SARA: When she was 12, she dressed like a boy
so she could try to study at the university.
- NOVICE: What happened?
- SARA: Well when they discovered she was a girl,
they brought her to the Court.
And word got out that she was as intelligent as 40 men.
So the Viceroy and Vicereine,
they sat Juana in front of 40 universitarians
who fired questions at her.
And she responded.
- NOVICE: Just like the boy Jesus in the temple!
Forgive me.
Sor Sara, why did she come here?
- SARA: Why?
- NOVICE: Why?
- SARA: My dear María, you know that
the past does not matter here.
NOVICE: Of course.
Forgive my impertinence.
- SARA: One story is that it had something to do with a man.
- NOVICE: A man!
- SARA: And another that it had something to do with a woman.
- NOVICE: A woman?
- SARA: And another that it had something to do
with much worse.
It was...
pride!
- NOVICE: Pride?
- SARA: The sin of pride. - NOVICE: May the Virgin
protect us all.
- SARA: Pride, yes, especially those among us who are not.
- NOVICE: So what happened?
Why did she come here?
- SARA: Dear María, why do we all come here, huh?
To serve God.
There is no other reason.
Sor Juana is here to serve God.
Ah, good morning, Sor Juana.
- NOVICE: Sor Juana.
- SARA: Sor Juana, did you not join this convent to serve God?
- JUANA: I am here to cross-stitch.
- SARA: A holy pursuit.
It teaches patience and humility.
Hopefully you will learn.
I will pray for you.
- JUANA: Thank you.
I'm certain God sees your concern.
- SARA: Oh, certainly, for He sees all and knows all.
- JUANA: Hmm.
I pray He does.
- SARA: You doubt?
- JUANA: Doubt? - SARA: Question?
- JUANA: No.
I sew.
- SARA: And what are you sewing?
[gasping] Sor Juana, what on earth are you doing?
- JUANA: My cross-stitching.
- PADRE: What a sight to behold.
Miracles do happen.
Good day, Sisters.
- SARA & NOVICE: Good day, Reverend Father.
- JUANA: Padre, I am so happy to see you.
- PADRE: I'm pleased to find you here as well.
- JUANA: Padre, I believe there's been a terrible mistake,
all my books and pens--
- PADRE: Sor Juana, be silent and seated.
Now!
The holy sisters are working assiduously.
- FILOTHEA: Yes. - SARA: As always.
Even Sor Juana is skilled with a needle and thread.
- PADRE: Really?
- NOVICE: Oh, but my work is almost finished.
Take a look.
- FILOTHEA: Ah!
St. Sebastian being martyred by the infidels.
Arrows.
Lovely!
- PADRE: Sor Juana, what are you creating?
What wild ambition drives us
to forget ourselves, our past?
What is this, Sor Juana?
- JUANA: For you, Padre.
The first verse I wrote under your tutelage.
Remember?
- PADRE: Juana, how dare you do this?
Filothea, you know that Sor Juana was forbidden to write.
- FILOTHEA: Padre, I do not know how else to stop her
from writing.
- JUANA: This is not writing, it is cross-stitching.
- PADRE: Sisters, what do you think of this?
- SARA: I am praying for Sor Juana's soul.
- PADRE: María, what do you think
of what Sor Juana has written?
- NOVICE: She should use the double-stitch for letters.
- PADRE: God save us.
- JUANA: Padre, what has happened?
- PADRE: Your writing has put us in grave danger.
A collection of your poems has just been published.
- JUANA: Really?
You've seen it?
- PADRE: Do you want to know the title?
Verses and Essays by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
the 10th Muse of México, Phoenix of Poetry.
- JUANA: Dios mío.
- PADRE: Why was I kept in the dark about this?
- JUANA: Padre. - PADRE: Only two poems
about our Lord, and the rest romantic poems, carnal poems.
- JUANA: But, Padre, I showed you the sonnets on friendship
and the poems on love.
- FILOTHEA: Is that true, Padre?
- PADRE: I never imagined they would leave beyond these walls
and be published.
- JUANA: I do not see how poems by a simple woman as myself
could possibly threaten the vast power
and glory of our church.
- PADRE: You are here to serve God.
- JUANA: And if God has chosen for me to serve in this manner?
- PADRE: You have chosen this!
You chose this.
Not God!
- JUANA: Reverend Father, you told me that when I came
to the convent, I would be allowed to write and to study.
- PADRE: I quote you,
"heat and heart, trembling in the dark."
- SARA: But how-- - PADRE: I quote you,
"The agony of loving, of feeling,
of thinking is at the root of my desire."
- FILOTHEA: Oh, God have mercy!
- JUANA: Padre! - PADRE: I quote you,
"My heart, in my breast,
shines with the delicacy of your touch."
- NOVICE: Sor Juana!
- PADRE: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
"My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh
resting between my breasts."
I quote.
- NOVICE: The Song of Solomon.
- PADRE: Enough!
I have been called before the Inquisition.
- FILOTHEA: Padre, No!
- JUANA: The Inquisition?
Dios mío, for my poetry?
- PADRE: Your poetry concerns your disobedience.
This letter to the new Bishop, however, is far more serious.
It concerns your insolence.
- JUANA: Forgive me, Padre.
I should have told you.
The New Bishop of Puebla,
he contacted me with a series of questions.
- PADRE: And he contacted the Inquisition
with your series of letters.
- JUANA: Dios mío.
- PADRE: "Holy sir, what can be so wrong about my being a poet?
"What strange madness.
"Writing in verse is so innate in me
"that I am doing violence to myself
to keep this missive in prose."
I quote you.
- JUANA: Padre... - PADRE: For years
I have defended your writing and your studies
to skeptical clerics.
These are troubling times,
the heavy rains, the ruined crops,
the native rebellions.
God's wrath is upon us.
The Inquisition is relentless and your disobedience
and insolence have put all of us, ALL OF US, in danger.
The New Bishop of Puebla--
- JUANA: The New Bishop of Puebla
believes women should not write.
- PADRE: And then you write him a letter
challenging his authority?
- JUANA: I did not challenge his authority, Padre.
I tried to reason with him.
Lope de Vega, Calderón, Góngora,
they're all published writers and men of the cloth.
- PADRE: You are not a man.
- JUANA: I know.
- PADRE: These poets are men of the cloth first.
They serve God and they respect the authority of the Church.
You wrote this poem in defiance of my orders.
- JUANA: This is a favorite poem of yours.
- PADRE: Juana,
do you love God?
- JUANA: Padre, you know my answer.
- PADRE: Do I?
- JUANA: Yes.
I love the Lord.
- PADRE: Again.
- JUANA: I love the Lord.
- PADRE: Say it with your soul!
- JUANA: I love the Lord!
- PADRE: You must repent for your sin of pride
and submit to the authority of God.
As your confessor, I must save your soul.
You will pull out every single word
you have stitched onto that cloth.
- JUANA: Padre? - PADRE: I will not accept
your confession until you destroy this stitch.
- JUANA: Padre.
- PADRE: I will not recognize you,
nor bless you, nor guide you in your search for God
until you learn humility and destroy this stitch.
If you do not, you must leave this convent.
- JUANA: El Padre, no!
- FILOTHEA: God have mercy!
- PADRE: Remember what you did that drove you here.
- JUANA: Padre, remember what saved me.
- PADRE: My daughter,
please.
Pull the thread from the cloth and renounce the words
that hold you captive from God's grace.
I beg you.
- JUANA: No.
- PADRE: Take Sor Juana back to her room.
- JUANA: Father, your heart.
- PADRE: What heart?
God will grant me the time He sees fit.
God help you, Sor Juana.
- NOVICE: It's but a cloth with thread.
- SARA: Shh, María!
- FILOTHEA: Come, Sor Juana.
- JUANA: Madre Filothea, why has el Padre abandoned me?
- FILOTHEA: Perhaps because you have abandoned God.
- JUANA: I don't think I have.
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, in this lifetime,
it is more important to be humble than to be right.
It is a lesson you have always failed to learn.
God forgive you for your sin.
- JUANA: [laughing] Which one?
- FILOTHEA: It is your pride, Sor Juana.
What will become of you, my child?
Go on with her.
- SARA: Your cell, Sor Juana.
Good night.
May the angels protect you in your sleep.
I will pray for you.
- NOVICE: I liked the poem, despite the stitching.
- JUANA: Oh, what a stupid woman I have become.
I have disobeyed Father Núnez.
I have brought the Inquisition down upon this house of God!
What a fool I am.
Cursed by Eve's affliction,
forgetting that ignorance is always the cleverest way.
I thought coming here would give me the freedom
to write and study, but I'm trapped.
Trapped.
God, why instill curiosity in women
and then punish us for having it?
If you can't make me understand, then help me to be good.
They say I sin when I learn
and yet how can I reasonably stop?
If it is true that I should not learn,
then teach me to hate knowledge,
teach me to respect ignorance,
to abhor the musicality of words
and the beauty of ideas.
Teach me to accept the path as it is,
and to submit to the authority of the narrow mind.
And teach me, above all,
to really want what I am asking because Lord, in all truth,
I prefer this prayer to go unanswered.
Amen.
[trunk crashing] [woman gasping]
Am I going mad?
- XÓCHITL: Let me out!
Let me out! ¡Auxilio!
- NARRATOR: Juana unlocks the chest.
- JUANA: Xóchitl!
- XÓCHITL: Finally, mi'jita.
[Xóchitl coughing]
Dusty in there.
- JUANA: [laughing] Xóchitl!
- JUANA: Ay, Juanita!
- JUANA: Ay,
I am mad.
Mad!
Oh, I've missed you.
- XÓCHITL: Ya ya, pobrecita.
- JUANA: Ay, Dios mío.
I know why you are here.
Pray for me, Xóchitl,
because I can no longer pray for myself.
- XÓCHITL: Pray for you? All right.
In the name of the Father, Quetzalcoatl,
and the Holy Spirits.
Amen.
- JUANA: Xóchitl.
It's in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost.
- XÓCHITL: Fine, I know.
I just don't want to seem partial to anybody up there.
- Vicereine: Juana!
Juana Inés!
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl opens the trunk.
The young Vicereine enters from the trunk in a splendid,
alluring dress.
- JUANA: [gasping] The Vicereine.
Mi Señora.
- VICEREINE: What's the matter, my little one?
- JUANA: I had forgotten how beautiful you were!
- VICEREINE: It is your beauty.
It is your reflection you see in my eyes.
Although you are not wearing the dress I gave you.
- XÓCHITL: Mi dona, you know how difficult it is
to make her look after herself?
- VICEREINE: Ay, no.
Don't tell me she cut her hair off again.
My little one, did you cut your hair again?
- JUANA: But we're supposed to.
- VICEREINE: Xóchitl!
You promised you wouldn't let her near the scissors.
- XÓCHITL: I didn't, mi dona.
But she's like a wild turkey.
- VICEREINE: Well, take that silly sheet off her head
and let us inspect the damage.
- JUANA: But my habit is a sign of humility and--
- VICEREINE: Off!
Off!
- JUANA: I have hair!
- XÓCHITL: She didn't do anything.
- VICEREINE: I'm sorry, my dear.
It's just you gave me quite a fright
when I saw you all covered up.
Remember that time you came to me
and you had cut your own hair?
- JUANA: [laughing] Sí.
- VICEREINE: You said, "A head adorned by hair and no knowledge
is an ugly sight."
- XÓCHITL: Tufts sticking out. - JUANA: It is.
- XÓCHITL: In every direction.
She looked like a hen that had survived a rooster fight.
- JUANA: I was 14, I was trying to learn Greek.
- XÓCHITL: And every time you stumbled,
off came a tuft of hair.
- VICEREINE: And this drab clothing?
- JUANA: Oh, take it off!
Off!
- XÓCHITL: Patience, mi'jita.
- VICEREINE: Yes, take it off!
- Xóchitl: Patience, mi dona.
All good things take time.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl removes Juana's habit.
The room becomes a colorful palace room.
[Juana laughing]
- JUANA: Look at me.
Oh, Dios mío!
It's me.
And yet, it's not.
Oh, this dress.
It makes me look so young.
- VICEREINE: And so beautiful.
- XÓCHITL: But underneath, there's a wily old spirit.
- VICEREINE: Juana is a wily old spirit!
Juana is a wily old spirit!
Juana is a wily old spirit that looks good in a dress.
You Mayans, you say the strangest things.
- XÓCHITL: Mi dona, I'm Aztec.
- VICEREINE: [laughing] Spirit or not,
I want Juana to turn into an old woman with me, by my side,
so we can become two moody ladies together.
- JUANA: The Viceroy just announced that all ladies
without noble lineage must leave the court.
- JUANA: And there's only one "lady" with no title.
- VICEREINE: I don't think he knows
how much Juana means to me.
- XÓCHITL: Oh, I think he does. - JUANA: Did you speak to him?
- VICEREINE: Juana, I so want you to stay.
- JUANA: So do I, and I wrote a persuasive letter to the Viceroy
listing all the reasons why I should.
- VICEREINE: I know.
I know.
Juana, you are 17 years old, you are no longer a child.
You cannot directly ask for things.
- JUANA: He needs to hear me.
- VICEREINE: An aristocrat always employs
more subtle and successful solutions!
- JUANA: But I am not an aristocrat.
- VICEREINE: My dear, you weren't born with nobility,
but sometimes you can marry for it.
- JUANA: No!
No, there must be a better alternative.
- VICEREINE: If you marry my uncle Fabio,
you will always be a part of the household.
- JUANA: Don Fabio?
- XÓCHITL: That old, dry, cranky man?
- JUANA: No, I have no dowry.
- VICEREINE: I have offered Don Fabio a dowry in your name.
And now he wishes to ask for your hand in marriage.
- JUANA: Mi Señora!
- VICEREINE: Juanita, it is the simplest way.
And you are the most incredible friend I've ever had.
- JUANA: Then why marry me to Don Fabio?
- VICEREINE: He can provide.
- JUANA: Señora, you told me that marriage
was the devil's hunting ground.
- VICEREINE: Oh, that's only on the bad days.
And besides, Don Fabio is way better than the Viceroy.
- XÓCHITL: True.
The Viceroy is handsome.
- JUANA: No, there must be another way.
- VICEREINE: Juana, my words are weak
and subject to my husband's whims.
Marriage is the only protection that you have.
- JUANA: But I don't love him.
- VICEREINE: Even better, how fortunate.
Believe me, the less you love him, the better.
- JUANA: But I really don't.
- VICEREINE: Oh, so would you rather
we never see each other again?
- JUANA: No!
No.
It's simply that-- - VICEREINE: Listen.
Listen, Juana,
it's time that you learn a little about being a woman.
Compromise.
Never aim to win and you will never lose.
Yield and you will get further than you think.
Men who conquer will win or die,
but women who compromise always survive.
- JUANA: Marriage is not.
- VICEREINE: So you're frightened, are you not?
- JUANA: Yes!
No, I don't know!
Forgive me, Señora,
but I've heard that men are like farmers...
they spread a little seed
and then think they own the land.
- VICEREINE: Allow them to think that they own you.
Fabio is just a man.
And men, you know, they don't bite.
Well, not often, but oh when they do,
it can feel pleasant, sometimes.
- JUANA: I don't follow.
- XÓCHITL: You shouldn't.
- JUANA: Xóchitl.
It's really, really, really simple.
Night falls and you and he are alone.
He approaches you and he takes your hands
and he looks into your eyes and he says,
"You are so beautiful.
"Your eyes, your mouth, your hair, your breasts.
Let me feel how beautiful you are."
And then he takes his hands
and he starts to trace the outline of your form.
And then he takes your face in his hands
and he starts to look longingly at your mouth.
- NARRATOR: Juana leans over and kisses the Vicereine
on the mouth.
[Vicereine sighs]
- JUANA: And kisses you?
Is that what you wanted... to say?
- VICEREINE: Yes.
No.
Just do not give, just allow him to take.
Enjoy if you can, and if you can't,
well, think of something else like a poem,
an errand, or a good friend.
- JUANA: What if he wants to take away my writing?
- VICEREINE: A poem does not put food in your belly
or a roof over your head.
A husband will not want you to be distracted
from your important duties.
- JUANA: Well I will not give up my writing or studies.
- VICEREINE: Oh, well perhaps your husband
will give his permission
for you to read your work to the ladies' court.
- JUANA: His permission?
- VICEREINE: Sometimes.
No man likes to be publicly outdone by his wife.
That much is clear.
But privately, secretly, you can always find a way to read
and put your thoughts on paper.
- XÓCHITL: It is not enough.
Juanita's spirit will break.
- VICEREINE: Xóchitl!
Juana, the choice is yours.
Well perhaps you prefer to go back and work on your knees
from dawn to dusk on your dead mother's farm.
Hmm?
Or you can become a concubine to wealthy men.
Or you can die nobly of hunger
as you write a poem in the dirt.
Or, you can marry a decent man
and remain a part of the court.
- JUANA: If I marry, I must compromise.
- VICEREINE: Bravo!
- JUANA: And then, so must he.
- VICEREINE: I beg your pardon?
- JUANA: I want six nights a week to write.
I want access to a library.
I wish to be part of a salon.
I want a publication.
- VICEREINE: Juana, do not be ridiculous.
We are talking about marriage.
- JUANA: Señora, as far as I'm concerned,
marriage is the ridiculous part.
- VICEREINE: Oh, you expect me to go to my uncle and--
- JUANA: No, mi Señora, you have been more than generous,
and I expect nothing more from you.
But those are my conditions.
- VICEREINE: No man will ever agree to that!
- JUANA: Which is why there is no man for me.
- VICEREINE: You are impossible.
You are so selfish.
Do not do this to me!
- JUANA: I will never forget your kindness, your generosity,
your affection.
- VICEREINE: Juana. - JUANA: Now Xóchitl,
please take these books, put them in the bottom.
We must leave by morning.
- VICEREINE: You have no money!
- JUANA: Ah take these books please, Xóchitl?
- VICEREINE: You have no home!
There is nowhere for you to go.
- JUANA: And with clothes, pack only what I brought.
- JUANA: Juana, why don't you just stop!
Two nights a week, no men in the salons, and no publication.
- JUANA: Five nights, a publication,
men invited to the salon, discussions every other week.
- VICEREINE: Three nights, no men at the salons,
and no publication.
- JUANA: Four nights, men at the salon once a month,
full access to a library, and a thin publication.
- VICEREINE: You learn too quickly.
So be it.
- JUANA: You agree?
- VICEREINE: Well you have no excuse to say no.
- XÓCHITL: Say no.
- JUANA: Señora, please tell Don Fabio
that it would be an honor for me to be his wife.
- VICEREINE: And don't ever leave me again.
[bowl slamming]
- PEDRO: [stammering] Good evening, my ladies.
- JUANA: Pedro!
- JUANA: Don Pedro, what are you doing here?
- JUANA: I'm here at the Viceroy's request, mi Señora.
And he demands you greet Father Núnez.
- VICEREINE: Now, right now?
Well, tell him...
tell him that I will be there in a moment.
And congratulations, my dear.
You have chosen wisely.
- JUANA: Sí, Señora
- JUANA: I will convince Don Fabio of the benefits
of this particular arrangement.
And we will have the wedding as soon as possible.
And Juana, from now on, we should refer to this Mayan.
- XÓCHITL: I'm Aztec!
- VICEREINE: This maid by her given Christian name, Agnes.
Come, Don Pedro, Father Núnez is waiting.
- JUANA: Sí, Señora.
- JUANA: Xóchitl, I just agreed to marry Don Fabio.
- XÓCHITL: Listen, mi'jita, I can stop the Vicereine right now
and tell her you have decided against it.
- JUANA: I used to be a poor girl on a poor farm.
Now, my poems are read in the great salons
of the Viceroy's court.
I have the Vicereine's favor.
All possibilities start and end here.
So, if I must marry a dour man.
- XÓCHITL: You will find no poetry in his bed.
The gods have provided you with a gift.
They have chosen you, they whisper in your ear.
You should honor their gift.
- JUANA: I will write.
- XÓCHITL: But you will find no inspiration.
A frog that wants to fly should not climb on a dodo's back.
- JUANA: Xóchitl.
You can't even write or read.
You do not understand the decisions of the intellect.
- XÓCHITL: Then why do I know this decision is not a good one?
- JUANA: Xóchitl, we are in a civilized world now.
No, there are no spirits here.
- NARRATOR: Silvio begins emerging from the ground.
- JUANA: I will marry Don Fabio.
- NARRATOR: Juana gasps when she sees Silvio.
- XÓCHITL: Ay, mi'ja
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl walks over to Silvio
and gently wipes some dust and sweat off of him.
- XÓCHITL: Ay, mijo.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl exits.
The Viceroy enters through the trunk.
- VICEROY: Silvio Burgas?
- SILVIO: Yes?
- VICEROY: Call me sir!
- SILVIO: Yes, sir.
- VICEROY: It says here that my guards caught you stealing.
- SILVIO: It was a mistake,
sir.
- VICEROY: You unrepentant little bastard.
I thought I'd seen the last of your sorry face
when I left from Spain.
- SILVIO: I came to find the riches of the Americas.
- VICEROY: Well, don't take them from me.
And if your father were still alive.
- SILVIO: As far as I know, my father is still quite dead.
- VICEROY: Which is what you should be.
Silvio, you had an honorable father.
- SILVIO: Who did nothing for me and my mother
but pretend we didn't exist.
- VICEROY: He had his real family to attend to.
No whore can change that.
And when your mother died,
he did provide you with an education.
Where is your gratitude?
- SILVIO: Gratitude?
I barely had anything to eat.
- VICEROY: But you learned!
- SILVIO: Knowledge does not make up for money.
- VICEROY: There is no need to show you any mercy.
Your father is dead.
You are here, not in Spain.
You are nothing but an ungrateful boy with no money
and no title who has the nerve to steal from me.
- PEDRO: Who's this?
- VICEROY: This is Silvio Burgas, from Madrid,
son of the Marqués de Salta.
- PEDRO: Of the Marqués?
Good evening, sir.
- SILVIO: Better evening for you, I suppose.
- PEDRO: No need for formality, Don Pedro.
This is one of the Marqués' bastards.
- SILVIO: Oh, I see.
What did the little bastard do?
- VICEROY: He's a thief.
I'm trying to decide what to do about him.
So what do you have to tell me?
How is my dear wife?
What?
- PEDRO: Mi Señor, I beg you, please calm down.
- VICEROY: Calm down?
You wish me to be calm?
- PEDRO: I beseech you, Señor, be seated.
- VICEROY: I issued that order
to get rid of Juana,
and now you are saying that.
- PEDRO: She is now engaged to Don Fabio.
- VICEROY: No!
That Juana child is affecting my wife in the strangest ways.
What is in the air of this odd new land?
My constant wife is becoming defiant, distracted,
disappearing before my very eyes.
She's reading books, she's writing in hidden journals.
This cannot be good for her.
- PEDRO: The Vicereine seems quite content.
- VICEROY: I know, I haven't seen her this happy
since the first year of our marriage.
Her mind is elsewhere.
But she's mine, and I love her.
I cannot lose Laura, you understand?
- PEDRO: Well, perhaps the wedding shouldn't happen.
- VICEROY: I cannot call off another nobleman's wedding.
Can I?
- PEDRO: No, but perhaps you could encourage Don Fabio
to cancel his own wedding.
- VICEROY: The fool is so in love with Juana,
he thinks she is worth more than diamonds and gold.
He would never cancel the wedding.
- PEDRO: He wouldn't, unless Juana became less valuable.
The girl is pure and untouched.
But I could change that.
- VICEROY: You flatter yourself.
I know that you have been spurned by the girl.
- PEDRO: Sir, it is not my fault!
I have used all my oft-victorious charms
and she chooses to ignore me.
And I'm not alone.
I personally know that the finest men of this court
have pleaded, cajoled, bribed,
lied and primped to catch her eye.
And yet she remains blind to them all.
- VICEROY: She lives by reason and vows celibacy.
- PEDRO: There is something faulty in her science.
- SILVIO: A good hunter never blames the game.
- VICEROY: What did he say?
- PEDRO: Nothing.
Shut up, prisoner boy.
- VICEROY: Tell me what you said.
- SILVIO: You can't hunt a sparrow with a hammer
or pull ocean fish without a net.
The weapon must be tailored to the hunt.
- PEDRO: I assure you, I have the finest of weapons.
- SILVIO: Even a silver sword is worthless
without a good soldier at the hilt.
- PEDRO: Listen, you little--
- SILVIO: And a good soldier knows the importance
of strategy, of surprise.
- PEDRO: I have been trained for battle.
- SILVIO: The object is to surprise, but not to startle.
The prey must be able to stare right at the predator
and not even know she's the target
until it's too late.
- VICEROY: Of course.
That's it!
A man that Juana does not know or suspect.
- SILVIO: A man with a different tactic
than those practiced before,
perhaps a man with some education, and yet...
- VICEROY: Some shrewdness that contradicts his nobility!
- SILVIO: A man with all the trappings
of nobility and wealth, yet none of the convictions.
A man who has stolen all that he has earned.
A thief of hearts.
- VICEROY: Exactly!
That's what I want, a thief of hearts.
- SILVIO: Now, if I were a very wise and wealthy ruler,
I would probably be thinking where can I hire
this kind of man to seduce this Juana?
- PEDRO: [laughing] Hire?
Hire?!
- SILVIO: Financial contracts are more binding than any favor.
All you need to do is employ a young, cultured,
handsome scoundrel.
Perhaps you have someone like that in the army?
Or your court?
Surely your court.
- VICEROY: No, not in the army, not in my court.
- SILVIO: The kitchen help?
The stable boy?
- VICEROY: No.
- PEDRO: Señor,
you certainly aren't considering.
- VICEROY: Yes, I am
- PEDRO: No, sir, he is not that handsome!
- VICEROY: A vestal virgin's dream!
And he's educated.
- PEDRO: Sir, I have been in your faithful service
for as long as I can remember.
- VICEROY: Dear impoverished and very distant cousin,
is that ingratitude that I am hearing?
- SILVIO: Señor, all I am asking is for an opportunity
to exceed your low expectations.
- VICEROY: Impress me with your silence.
I want someone better.
And if he's anything like his father,
he has experience humiliating a woman.
- SILVIO: Your honor and my ruler, I am most taken aback...
- PEDRO: Me too.
- VICEROY: Silvio, do you think you can seduce a woman
like Juana?
- SILVIO: With all due respect, sir,
there's nothing that makes me think I can't.
- VICEROY: You cocky little rooster.
You know nothing about her.
- SILVIO: More importantly, she knows nothing about me.
I can be tailored to suit her needs.
- VICEROY: Juana is quite unusual.
- SILVIO: Ah, a religious and virtuous type?
- VICEROY: She is beautiful and strong,
very strong
up here,
knows the answer before you've even asked the question.
It is fascinating and entertaining,
but she has gone too far.
- PEDRO: Señor, why are you doing this?
- VICEROY: I want Laura to look at me again!
Silvio, will you help me?
- PEDRO: I cannot believe this!
- SILVIO: Sir, I wish I could help.
Your dilemma really bears on my heart, but--
- VICEROY: I will pay you one thousand reales!
I want Juana gone.
Your seduction must be as public
and humiliating as possible,
so much that Don Fabio cannot help but to repudiate her
and my wife and I cannot help but to turn her away.
- PEDRO: But he is a mess, sir.
- VICEROY: Pedro, dress this man and give him the tools he needs
to do his job.
Let us say that you are... are...
- SILVIO: Don Silvio Granadera, Marqués de las Tampas,
a progressive philosopher and a wealthy landowner
here on holiday in New Spain.
- VICEROY: Soon, the Vicereine will be formally announcing
the engagement of Don Fabio to Juana.
I can think of no better place
to introduce Don Silvio to the young girl.
Pedro, unchain this man and lead him off
to be bathed and dressed.
- PEDRO: But the cad is hiding gold.
- SILVIO: Hands off.
It is mine, a gift from my mother.
- VICEROY: Let him keep it.
The chain will be a reminder of what is at stake.
Remember, Silvio, if you succeed,
you will earn one thousand reales and your freedom.
Should you fail, I suspect your future will be less bright.
Now go!
Pedro, keep an eye on him.
We don't want him stealing anything
other than Juana's honor.
Not a bad idea, eh?
- PEDRO: A thousand reales to a stranger who steals?
Forgive me, sir, but I would have been honored
to buy your trust and not cost a coin.
- VICEROY: You get what you pay for.
I love my wife, she is the only one that matters.
She is to know nothing of this arrangement.
Ever.
- PEDRO: Nothing.
- VICEROY: When Don Silvio tarnishes Juana's name,
Don Fabio is bound to avenge her.
And then, we will be rid of the thief as well.
Ingenious, eh?
- PEDRO: Ingenious, sir.
- VICEROY: Never doubt the Viceroy.
- PEDRO: Never, sir.
- VICEROY: This is all for Laura.
- PEDRO: For the nobility of love, sir.
- VICEROY: Shut up, Pedro.
- PEDRO: Yes, sir.
- NARRATOR: Lights up on the convent.
[knocking on door]
- SARA: Sor Juana, it is Sor Sara.
Sor Filothea sent me with food.
You should eat.
Open the door.
I take no pleasure standing here.
Open the door!
We burned your books this morning.
[Juana screaming]
They made a fire, but it was short lived.
Are you repenting, Sor Juana?
- JUANA: No, I am not repenting.
- SARA: God, He knows what you are doing.
- NARRATOR: In her room at the court.
- JUANA: Xóchitl, I've just written a lovely verse.
- XÓCHITL: Hush, mi'jita.
Your engagement party is minutes away, and look at you.
Did you write a poem for Don Fabio?
- JUANA: It's done.
- XÓCHITL: Then sit down, I must do something with your hair.
- JUANA: No, but--
- XÓCHITL: And eat something!
You need some food.
- JUANA: Okay, so listen to this!
- XÓCHITL: Juana!
- JUANA: Reason is a sword
with purpose on both sides,
the base to defend,
the point to make others die.
If, conscious of the danger,
I negotiate with the blade
blame not the witless sword
for the bloody choice I made.
- XÓCHITL: Don Fabio will not like that one.
- JUANA: Don Fabio cannot dislike what he does not see.
- XÓCHITL: You have made up your mind,
and now you must get ready.
- JUANA: But thoughts are rushing in,
ideas, images, words.
Don't you understand?
- XÓCHITL: I understand more than you will ever know.
- VICEREINE: Juana.
Juana Inés!
- JUANA: Tell her you do not know where I am.
- XÓCHITL: Look at you,
postponing your engagement for a poem!
- JUANA: It will only be a moment, I promise.
I just need to--
- VICEROY: Juana?
Where is Juana?
- XÓCHITL: Mi dona, I'm certain she's not far from here.
- VICEREINE: Well, did she do as I asked and write a poem
in honor of Don Fabio?
- XÓCHITL: Yes, mi dona.
- VICEREINE: As long as all of her poems
are about her husband's virtues,
Don Fabio will allow her to write.
- XÓCHITL: I think she is practicing her very short ode
as we speak.
- VICEREINE: Well, let us go find her.
- SILVIO: Uh-huh.
A poem for Don Fabio.
Let's see.
Oh no.
Ay dios mío..
Blah-blah-blah-blah.
- PEDRO: Juana?
Juana, the Viceroy demands that you.
Where is the little?
Oh, it still carries her scent.
Ah, it appears we are alone,
little Juana.
Where are you, Juanita?
[gasping] Is this the bed where you lie, little Juanita?
Is this where you dream your girlish dreams?
Is this where your heart trembles
with anticipation
of a book?
How many times have you met my gaze
and dismissed me by simply turning the page?
Why?
You can love me, want me, fear me,
but do not dismiss me!
I too have heart and mind
and
I hate being so alone.
Are you listening to me?
I said, are you listening to me?
Take this poetry, you wench.
- XÓCHITL: Señor!
- PEDRO: Xóchitl!
Oh!
Oh, what are you doing here?
- XÓCHITL: What are you doing here?
Señor, this is Juana's room.
- PEDRO: It is!
- XÓCHITL: And that is Juana's bed!
- PEDRO: I know.
And thank God you are here,
for I have suffered a terrible accident.
In my search for Juana, I have fallen.
- XÓCHITL: Oh, it certainly seems that way.
- PEDRO: I have injured myself so badly
that I had to drag myself to this position.
- XÓCHITL: It is quite a position.
- PEDRO: I fear I cannot walk.
- XÓCHITL: Oh, you're in pain?
- PEDRO: I am sore.
- XÓCHITL: Oh, I see.
- PEDRO: And now, you must help me.
- XÓCHITL: Señor,
I will do what I can.
- PEDRO: Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay.
Ay, ay. [Xóchitl grunting]
Do not mention this to the Vicereine.
Am I too heavy?
- XÓCHITL: Oh, no Señor.
My shoulders are used to this type of burden.
- PEDRO: You Mayans are so strong.
- JUANA: That insolent little...
- SILVIO: Hello.
I beg your pardon.
Don Silvio Granadera, Marqués de las Tampas,
Master of Letters and Philosophy.
May I?
- JUANA: Are you looking for a dress?
- SILVIO: I am looking for Juana Inés Ramírez de Asbaje.
- JUANA: In there?
Oh, no, no, no.
She's much too complicated to fit in such a small space.
Here, try the blue one.
- SILVIO: I beg your pardon?
- JUANA: Sir, you are a gentleman.
Surely you know that it is highly improper for a gentleman
to speak alone in a young woman's bedroom.
So you are either here to steal from me or borrow clothes.
- SILVIO: I prefer the red one.
It's in the back.
- JUANA: It's a favorite of mine as well.
I hope it fits.
On your way out, please shut the door.
Señor, what are you doing?
- SILVIO: I am changing.
- JUANA: Here?
- SILVIO: Certainly, what if I should return to my room
and the dress should not fit?
- JUANA: Señor, surely you do not intend to,
Señor!
- SILVIO: What do you think?
- JUANA: Lovely.
- SILVIO: This is rather uncomfortable.
How can you stand wearing something this tight every day?
- JUANA: Tight?
You are not even wearing the bustier.
- SILVIO: Should I?
- JUANA: If you wish to be dressed correctly, yes.
- SILVIO: I see.
- JUANA: Oh, uh, Señor!
- SILVIO: Really, Señorita Juana,
I am surprised by your surprise.
Aren't you the one who wrote souls are sexless?
- JUANA: Sir, you are not exposing your soul.
- SILVIO: Unless this is too much for you.
- JUANA: Allow me.
[Silvio gasping]
- SILVIO: Thank you, Señorita,
I appreciate your cooperation.
You know how society events are.
Somebody would be sure to comment on the impropriety
of my lack of bustier.
Gently... gently.
Santa Madre de Jesús,
how do you breathe with these things on?
- JUANA: We are not supposed to.
Oh don't you know,
we spend our whole lives holding our breath and our tongue.
Why are you here?
- SILVIO: I am here to meet you.
- JUANA: I'm impressed.
A man that dares dress like a woman to meet a woman
must be quite a man.
- SILVIO: I hear you are quite a woman
- JUANA: It depends on what quite a woman is.
- SILVIO: I also heard you were beautiful.
- JUANA: And now you can see if you heard correctly.
- SILVIO: There are certain men who say
there are only so many virtues a woman can shoulder.
- JUANA: And then there is you.
- SILVIO: There is always an exception for the exceptional.
And you, querida, are wise in noting it.
- JUANA: Oh, you fancy yourself different from other men?
- SILVIO: Oh no, it is quite plain, I am different.
- JUANA: Underneath it all, you still look like other men.
You walk like other men.
Your scent is like others.
- SILVIO: But I can assure you, my dear,
my taste is quite different.
Ah, the clever girl reads.
Don Quixote.
Cervantes, quite the master.
I know the book.
- JUANA: From reading too much and sleeping too little.
- SILVIO: His brain dried up and he lost his wits.
- JUANA: Impressive. - SILVIO: Hardly.
I had a lonely childhood, except I read.
Is the story the same for you?
- JUANA: Yes.
- SILVIO: Curse or blessing, this passion of the intellect?
- JUANA: It is both and it is neither.
For every passion in every intellect is different.
- SILVIO: And yet the soul's search is the same, is it not?
- JUANA: The search for understanding?
- SILVIO: And the search for union.
- JUANA: Why are you here?
- SILVIO: Let us not play games, Señorita Juana.
This is America [exhaling].
Spain suffocates me.
I am ready for a true challenge,
to set my roots in a land that will judge all of us
on the nobility of our actions, not our ancestry.
I am here to build a life based on the merits of my ideas,
the tenacity of my spirit, and the strength of my body.
You, on the other hand, are to wed Don Fabio.
- JUANA: Yes.
- SILVIO: I wish you much happiness.
- JUANA: Thank you. - SILVIO: A splendid match.
Don Fabio is a great gentleman. - JUANA: Yes.
- SILVIO: Very decent and very dull.
- JUANA: He will be my husband.
- SILVIO: The man you love?
- JUANA: The man I will marry.
- SILVIO: You penned this poem for him?
- JUANA: Your thoughts, Señor?
- SILVIO: You should begin all over again.
- JUANA: Pardon?
- SILVIO: The poem is bland and uninspired.
- JUANA: Señor!
- SILVIO: I can speak plainly on equal terms
or I can flatter you with vapid politeness.
Which do you prefer?
- JUANA: The truth.
- SILVIO: Love's delicacy consists of being loved.
Ay, Juana.
- JUANA: You surprised me.
This is not my best work.
- SILVIO: Excuses.
Poets hand you something and say this is not my best work.
- JUANA: Señor, I handed you nothing.
- SILVIO: The words are elegant, but there is no life,
no blood, no spirit.
I cannot publish this!
- JUANA: Publish?
Publish my work?
- SILVIO: It just goes to prove intelligence
does not equal artistry.
There is no art here.
- JUANA: Sir, your rudeness and shortsightedness
are dwarfed only by your unfounded arrogance.
- SILVIO: I beg your pardon?
- JUANA: The truth is I do write poetry and I write it well.
- SILVIO: I know I should accept your claim with grace.
- JUANA: I hope, instead, you challenge my words
to a poetic race.
- SILVIO: You challenge me to challenge you?
Very well, I will oblige.
Juana Inés, be so kind and clever as to create a poem now.
- JUANA: A poem, any subject?
Any style? - SILVIO: A love poem.
A love poem dedicated to me.
- JUANA: Oh, surely you are aware of the impropriety.
I am a promised woman!
- SILVIO: And deeply inspired by your beloved, I know.
But this is not a test of your ability to love,
but of your ability to write.
Are you creative and brave enough to write a poem
about adoring me?
- JUANA: Silvio, that I could place my love on you
is a truth I must decree,
to love a man as vile as few
confirms sin's weight and gravity.
Dearly, I wish, when my eyes fall on you
that I could deny a love so base and low,
but reason's force so hard and true
demands I admit the sin I know.
For the crime of loving you, there is no pardon,
save to confess and have my heart
harden.
- SILVIO: Do you cross-stitch?
- JUANA: No. - SILVIO: Forget writing,
learn to cross-stitch instead.
It will make your life much simpler.
- JUANA: You found the poem so inadequate?
- SILVIO: I do not know how much exposure to the world
a girl like you has had, and since I do not wish to startle
such a tender young lady as yourself, I shall stay silent.
- JUANA: Your words will not break me.
- SILVIO: I would take pride to watch you recite
to a court of noble men.
I would share with the world your verse
and celebrate your pen.
I know I stand alone,
but I find it quite a bore
for a man to force a gifted woman
to make her life a chore.
I implore you, my love, accept my true romance.
By the sun write poems,
with me, in the moonlight, dance.
- JUANA: Your views, Don Silvio, are different,
rich, sublime,
but voicing them here could be a serious crime.
- SILVIO: Risks must be made
to better each other's life.
I'll be your loving editor
if you'll be my passionate wife.
- JUANA: A moment ago you roared I was a woman with no art.
- SILVIO: You are divinity.
You are trinity.
True mind, true soul, true heart.
- NOVICE: Sor Juana, you must let something touch your lips.
- JUANA: You must go.
- SILVIO: Hurry.
Don Fabio the Decent is waiting.
- JUANA: Goodbye and goodnight, Don Silvio Granadera,
Marqués de las Tampas.
- SILVIO: Señorita Juana?
- JUANA: Yes?
- SILVIO: Dedicate your first cross-stitch to me.
[Juana groaning]
- JUANA: Oh Xóchitl, help me.
What have I done?
- XÓCHITL: Ay, mi'ja
- [Juana gasps]
*
- PEDRO: Mi Señor, the Vicereine has made a list
of requests for Don Fabio's wedding to Juana Inés.
- VICEROY: I'm sure she has.
What does the Vicereine want?
- PEDRO: Ooh, various things.
Guests, food, flowers, the normal.
- VICEROY: What is her estimate?
- PEDRO: Five-hundred reales.
- VICEROY: Five-hundred reales?
- PEDRO: Yes, it is more economical to wed Juana off
than to hire the bastard.
- VICEROY: Silvio, did you hear that?
My valet says you are a poor investment.
- SILVIO: I think your valet is still a little sore.
- PEDRO: Listen, you little...
- VICEROY: Boys, enough.
Silvio, you've had several days.
How have things advanced with Juana?
- SILVIO: Matters are where they should be.
I have planted my seed.
- PEDRO: What? So soon?
- SILVIO: In her mind.
New thoughts are taking root.
- PEDRO: No!
No time for new thoughts.
Attack from all sides.
Allow her to think there's no other way but yours.
Wear down all defenses.
Exhaust her, confuse her, overpower her.
Sir, I am very concerned.
- VICEROY: I can see this concern etched in your face.
- PEDRO: A thousand reales for this?
- VICEROY: All I know is that your life and fortune
depends on how Juana succumbs.
- JUANA: Good morning, dear sir and noble gentlemen.
Am I interrupting something?
- VICEROY: No. no!
How are you today?
- JUANA: Thank you for the lovely engagement celebration.
- VICEROY: Don Fabio is a fortunate man.
- JUANA: No, I am a fortunate woman,
having a protector like you to guide me.
- VICEROY: Yes, well...
- JUANA: I came to speak to your guest.
- VICEROY: My guest?
- JUANA: The Marqués.
Don Silvio.
- VICEROY: A fine young man
from one of the best families in Valencia.
- SILVIO: Good morning, Señorita Juana Inés.
- JUANA: Good morning, Don Silvio.
Good morning, Don Pedro.
- VICEROY: Don Silvio, it appears that this young lady
wishes to speak to you.
- JUANA: Oh, it's nothing really.
I have something for Don Silvio.
- VICEREINE: Juana, there you are!
- JUANA: Mi Señora, I was just telling the Viceroy
how grateful I am with the engagement celebration.
- VICEREINE: Oh yes, husband, you are... splendid.
Juana, I really need to speak with you.
- JUANA: I'm sorry, mi Señora, I cannot.
I have just requested a moment with Don Silvio.
- SILVIO: Good morning, my Lady.
- VICEREINE: I see.
Well, do not take long.
I'll await for you in my chamber.
Good day, gentlemen.
- VICEROY: Laura, Pedro and I
were on our way to meet Padre Núñez.
- PEDRO: What?
- VICEROY: I think you should join us.
- VICEREINE: Now?
I'm terribly busy.
- VICEROY: Too busy for your lord?
Come now, Laura.
Confession is good for the soul.
Let's go, Pedro.
- PEDRO: But Padre Núñez is...
- VICEROY: Is waiting.
- PEDRO: Yes, sir.
Juana, beware, none of us is what we seem.
- JUANA: Don Pedro?
- PEDRO: Juana, heed my words.
- JUANA: What did he mean?
- SILVIO: I do not know.
I am surprised that you wish to speak to me.
You have not even met my gaze since we last spoke.
- JUANA: Don Silvio, I'm afraid that I owe you an apology.
- SILVIO: But if I offended you...
- JUANA: Señor, I must admit...
I found your comments disturbing...
even painful.
And I became very angry at you.
- SILVIO: For speaking the truth?
- JUANA: For giving me hope.
Your candor, Don Silvio, is the most gracious gift
I have ever received.
It made me think... it made me feel...
differently.
You appear to have both knowledge and experience.
- SILVIO: My family has lived for centuries
in the cultured city of Salamanca.
The university has been my playground.
I like to consider myself a professor and tutor
in many things.
- JUANA: And so, I approach you with a humble question.
I have always been alone when...
But perhaps you... Are you able...
are you willing...
to possibly teach... a woman?
- SILVIO: Depends on what the woman would like to learn.
- JUANA: Well Señor, nothing less than the ways of the world.
- SILVIO: Really?
- JUANA: I am ready for everything.
- NARRATOR: She hands him some poems.
Don't be gentle.
Help me grow.
Go on... read them.
[Silvio chuckles] - SILVIO: Hmm.
Uh...
This one is charming,
although the syntax is a little awkward.
- JUANA: Exactly!
I thought so, as well.
And yet...
- SILVIO: "My body is the obedient metal
To the magnet of your skin
Making love to you
Makes a mockery out of me.
But Boast not of your triumph.
I am not your prize.
Reject Me.
Slip away from the silk of my arms, my breasts
You are still a prisoner
In my poem."
- JUANA: Too direct?
- SILVIO: Sometimes discomfort is completely appropriate.
- JUANA: Yes.
- SILVIO: "You've undressed my heart, dissolved it
Your hands drowning in its liquid"
Why choose the word "drowning"?
- JUANA: Because that is the precise word for how I feel.
- SILVIO: Juana--
- JUANA: I can't hold my breath any longer.
Sir, if I wasn't a lady and you weren't a gentleman,
and you were forced to speak your honest mind.
What would you say of the works before you?
[Silvio sighs]
- SILVIO: I would say that they are by no means perfect...
but they are eloquent and ferocious...
betraying a wisdom too ripe for your young years.
I would say that whatever you do, you must keep writing.
Imperfect poems are sometimes
the truest expression of the soul.
- NARRATOR: Juana kisses the inside of Silvio's hand.
- SILVIO: Juana?
- JUANA: I assure you, I am usually a virtuous,
controlled woman.
- SILVIO: What a pity. [Juana laughs]
- JUANA: Don Silvio, since we met,
I close my eyes and I see you.
You are caught between my head and my heart.
Nothing is right-- my blood is thinking and my mind is feeling;
I'm going mad... and it's you who are making me this way.
- SILVIO: Juana, you are to wed another man.
- JUANA: Yes!
And my sense of reason judges that
as the most prudent choice to make.
- SILVIO: A very good decision, indeed.
Juana, be rest assured that this "impulse" towards me
is nothing more than a whim.
- JUANA: Please stop pretending!
- SILVIO: Pretending?
- JUANA: Don't be so polite, so reasonable, so proper.
I know what you want.
- SILVIO: What do I want?
- JUANA: Everything.
You dare hope for everything.
It's in your eyes, Don Silvio.
Why did you come here?
My life was decided and clear.
I did not want any man.
I don't want any marriage.
Ever!
And yet, I want you.
- SILVIO: I should leave.
- JUANA: I'm afraid you will not go away.
- SILVIO: Juana--
- JUANA: You said that in your world,
a woman would be encouraged to write, to read,
to speak her mind and her heart as she pleased?
- SILVIO: I stand by my name.
- JUANA: And in spite of what others said,
you would honor and respect this freedom... her freedom?
- SILVIO: I stand by my name.
- JUANA: And you would love her?
- SILVIO: I would love you, Juana.
- JUANA: Señor, for the first time in my life
I am not reaching my decision by reason...
but by trying to reason my feelings,
and I know not whether
to celebrate my liberation or weep my defeat.
Can you tell me that you speak the truth?
- SILVIO: I stand by my name.
- JUANA: I want to believe you.
- SILVIO: And I you.
How do I know you will not abandon me
like you have Don Fabio?
- JUANA: Abandoning you would be like abandoning
the best within myself.
Don Silvio, abandoning you would be forsaking a gift that God,
in all his grace, has given.
- SILVIO: Words.
Beautiful words.
- JUANA: It's all I have to give.
- SILVIO: Dear Juana, a loving, physical and tangible gesture
will do more than any poem.
- JUANA: Monday night, I shall be alone.
Meet me then.
I will show you the depth of my love.
- SILVIO: I shall be there.
Do you love me, Juana?
- JUANA: I think I do.
I dream I do.
I feel I do.
But Silvio, I have no name to stand by...
[Pedro applauds]
- PEDRO: Congratulations.
Nice work, very nice work.
Despite my efforts.
Amazing how the illegitimate can find each other
and beget more illegitimacy.
- SILVIO: Don Pedro, with all due respect,
hold your tongue before I pummel your face into the dirt.
- PEDRO: Testy.
Testy.
Remember, Silvio, you are supposed to get into her
before she gets into you.
- SILVIO: You know what I like best about being a bastard,
Don Pedro?
- PEDRO: No, Silvio, do tell.
- SILVIO: Our ability to love and forgive.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl gets out of the trunk.
She is wearing a habit.
She puts on the wimple and becomes Sor Filothea.
Lights up on the convent.
Sor Filothea is outside of Juana's door.
The novice, bearing a jug of water, is with her.
Juana is feverish and having a nightmare.
[knocking on door]
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, can you hear me?
I am concerned.
You have not eaten in five days
- VICEREINE: You look weary and pale.
- JUANA: Madre Filothea?
- FILOTHEA: You are wasting food, Sor Juana.
It is a sin to deny the gifts God brings.
- JUANA: I know.
- FILOTHEA: Will you not open the door?
Join us again?
Are you ill?
- JUANA: Yes, hungry, sick.
- NARRATOR: The Viceroy and Pedro come out of the trunk.
As characters in Juana's dream, they move in on her fever.
The Vicereine feels Juana's forehead.
- VICEREINE: You have a fever.
- JUANA: Did YOU burn my books, Filothea?
- FILOTHEA: Don't you understand?
It was an act of love. - JUANA: What love?
- FILOTHEA: Beware, Juana,
of the seductive dangers of solitude.
- JUANA: I'm not alone.
- FILOTHEA: Sor Juana, from now on,
I am to leave nothing but a jug of water at your door...
until you pull out every thread from your cross-stitch.
- VICEROY: The cross-stitch.
- FILOTHEA: Will you not open the door?
- JUANA: Open the door?
- FILOTHEA: And undo what you have done.
- VICEREINE: I can't.
- NARRATOR: The Vicereine, Pedro and Viceroy
prevent Juana from opening the door.
- JUANA: I can't undo what I have done.
- FILOTHEA: God bless you, my child.
- SILVIO: If others should find out...
- JUANA: There will be consequences...
- SILVIO: For you. - JUANA: For us both.
- SILVIO: I was thinking about the poem you gave me...
- JUANA: Yes?
- SILVIO: I now believe that "drowning" is the precise word.
- JUANA: I have something to give you.
- SILVIO: A poem?
- JUANA: Something more...
personal...
tangible.
- SILVIO: Juana...
- JUANA: Don Silvio, it took all my resolve
to reach this decision.
I do not care to back down now.
- SILVIO: Juana...
- JUANA: Do you want me to stop? - SILVIO: Yes.
No.
- JUANA: Well?
- SILVIO: Silvio reaches for her.
- JUANA: Juana takes his hand;
she places his palm against her stomach
and guides it up her body to her breasts.
- SILVIO: They embrace.
- JUANA: She pulls out a cloth from her cleavage
and gently pushes him away.
- SILVIO: She hands him the cloth.
- JUANA: This is what I wanted to give you.
- SILVIO: Oh... a cross-stitching?
- JUANA: It's one of the most difficult things I've ever done.
Did I capture it correctly?
- SILVIO: What?
- JUANA: Your family crest.
- SILVIO: Oh!
Now I see it, of course.
The crest.
- JUANA: Yes, you see.
That's a lion.
- SILVIO: Yes.
- JUANA: For courage, I suppose.
- SILVIO: Yes, and the book for learning.
The ship for adventure and...
Uh, what is that?
- JUANA: Oh, that, I beg your pardon.
That's blood.
I pricked myself.
- SILVIO: Badly? - JUANA: It will heal.
Pain is part of the process, no?
- SILVIO: Unfortunately.
- JUANA: And then, there is the last design.
- SILVIO: The candle.
- JUANA: What does the candle stand for?
- SILVIO: Uh, boy, oh... many things really.
- JUANA: Illumination?
- SILVIO: Mm-hmm, enlightenment.
- JUANA: Ah, the truth?
- SILVIO: Why, yes.
The truth.
- JUANA: Interesting... well, especially
in light of the fact that you're lying to me.
- SILVIO: Lying to you?
- JUANA: Don Silvio, this is not the Tampas family crest.
Either you aren't very familiar with your lineage...
or you are not who you claim to be.
- SILVIO: I beg your pardon?
- JUANA: Yes, you should.
A publisher?
From Salamanca? Madrid? Valencia?
Where exactly has your family lived for the last century?
- SILVIO: Juana, you're confused.
- JUANA: Confused, yes; Wrong, no.
This crest is a product of my imagination.
And, perhaps, your name is a product of your imagination.
- SILVIO: Juana, I can explain--
- JUANA: I wanted to make something just for you...
cross-stitch your family crest.
I spent hours in the library and discovered
there is no Tampas family!
There is no you!
All I could ask is why?
WHY?
Why is this wonderful, learned man lying to me?
What profit is there in pretending to be a nobleman?
And then suddenly I knew!
I understood!
- SILVIO: There is nothing to understand.
- JUANA: You are Misbegotten.
You are Illegitimate.
You are a bastard.
- SILVIO: I have never been so insulted!
- JUANA: I find that hard to believe.
- SILVIO: I am not a natural child, a wreck, like... like...
- JUANA: Like me?
Cursed at conception... paying for sins that were not ours.
Judged more by station and birth than merit.
I am treated as a carnival curiosity...
and waved about like a banner if I do anything right.
That's who I am.
Who are you?
- SILVIO: Silvio Burgas,
the bastard son of The Marqués de Salta.
- JUANA: Why didn't you tell me earlier?
- SILVIO: And court your disdain?
My mother, my father and I all cursed the day I was born.
Why should you be any different?
- JUANA: Silvio, you do not understand me.
- SILVIO: You have discovered the truth.
I am but a common man.
Juana,
forgive me.
- JUANA: When I was twelve,
I cut my hair and donned boy's clothing.
For a brief moment,
the world opened up for me.
I was in disguise, but more myself than I'd ever been.
- SILVIO: Juana, do not have any illusions.
I am a misbegotten...
- JUANA: Bastard son... but hardly common.
Silvio, we should leave here together.
- SILVIO: And go where?
I have no name, no wealth...
- JUANA: Don Silvio, I know the value of gold,
the worth of noble birth, the price of power.
I have read books on faraway lands,
and written poetry from my heart.
But, Señor, I never dreamed that one person
could open so many doors within my soul.
If you seek wealth, search no further than yourself.
- SILVIO: Juana, luxury and comfort are not to be dismissed.
- JUANA: No.
It is a pleasure to live with them,
and a tragedy to live for them.
I nearly threw away my life
for the comfort of living here.
- SILVIO: We cannot live by words alone.
- JUANA: We will earn others' respect by truly valuing
the wealth we possess--
the wealth of our wit, our hearts, our minds.
I promise, as you enrich me, I will enrich you.
- SILVIO: Silvio removes his chain
and places it around Juana's neck.
My mother worked her wretched life
She gave me this gold chain
It protected me for twenty years
It is my only worldly gain
All that I have and all that I am,
is yours.
- JUANA: And since the soul is the body's life.
I will breathe your air, and be your wife.
- SILVIO: Juana and Silvio kiss.
- JUANA: Let's leave tonight, in secret.
- SILVIO: I'll await you at midnight at the twisted oak
that divides the stream.
I will not leave without you.
- PEDRO: Here they are!
- VICEREINE: WHAT are you doing alone with this... man?
- JUANA: Go!
- PEDRO: I told you, Señora!
- VICEREINE: Get him, you fool.
He's ruining everything!
So this is how you betray my affection?
- JUANA: Forgive me, Señora.
- VICEREINE: You are destroying your future.
- JUANA: I love him.
- VICEREINE: And you think loving someone brings happiness?
So you're leaving then?
- JUANA: Yes.
- VICEREINE: I suppose I would too, if I could.
You know, dear Juana, the heart may move you to do things
you never imagined doing.
Passion breaks promises and love is a tremendous force.
The only thing stronger should be the resistance to its loss.
Loss of love is the deepest tragedy there is, Juana.
And no matter what the Viceroy say or what God say...
and no matter how your love is viewed
in their narrow eyes...
you must do everything-- EVERYTHING--
not to lose what you have gained.
One must do what is necessary, my dear--
even if it is difficult.
- JUANA: Your understanding is a blessing.
- VICEREINE: I only want what is best for you.
May God be with you.
- PEDRO: The bastard got away!
- VICEREINE: Be quiet, Pedro!
And do not worry, Juana, you will find your true love.
You look so pale.
You should eat something and go get some sleep.
- JUANA: Thank you, Señora.
- PEDRO: That Don Silvio is a rogue, and Juana a whore...
- VICEREINE: Silence, Don Pedro!
You should respect the man that Juana loves.
That way, you can be merciful and quick... when you kill him.
- PEDRO: I beg your pardon?
- VICEREINE: I will not allow him
to destroy that girl's future.
Don Silvio shall not live to see another day.
- PEDRO: Yes, my lady.
- VICEREINE: And no others shall know about this,
especially the Viceroy.
- PEDRO: But Señora, the rogue has fled.
- VICEREINE: Don Pedro, do you really think
a man like Don Silvio would leave a woman like Juana?
He will return.
- PEDRO: But Don Silvio is a gifted swordsman.
And I have never--
- VICEREINE: [yelling] No time, I have no time for thoughts.
Attack from all sides.
Wear down all defenses.
Exhaust him.
Confuse him.
Overpower him.
Do you understand, Pedro?
- PEDRO: Yes.
- VICEREINE: Let's just call it "an act of passion."
[laughs wickedly]
- XÓCHITL: Oh, forgive me, Don Pedro,
I was looking for the Vicereine.
- PEDRO: Xóchitl!
I am glad you are here-- just the person I was looking for!
- XÓCHITL: Señor?
- PEDRO: I have an important errand I must run
but I must notify the Viceroy before I leave.
Xóchitl, can you understand what is written here?
- XÓCHITL: No, Señor. - PEDRO: Good.
Take this message to the Viceroy immediately.
- XÓCHITL: I will deliver it to the appropriate hands.
- XÓCHITL: Juana!
Juana Inés!
What are you doing? - JUANA: Nothing.
- XÓCHITL: I see what I see... and my eyes do not lie.
You are leaving with that Silvio.
- JUANA: Yes, I am.
Don Silvio has ignited my mind, my heart and my soul with hope.
- XÓCHITL: Don Silvio is not who you think he is.
- JUANA: I know.
- NARRATOR: Xóchitl spits on the floor.
The floor rumbles.
- XÓCHITL: Can't you see?
Completely overturning your mind to follow your heart
will only lead you to darkness.
- JUANA: The Vicereine does not think so.
She understands true love.
- XÓCHITL: True love is never built on a lie.
- JUANA: Xóchitl!
You know nothing of what you say.
- XÓCHITL: I know what I can read.
- JUANA: Read?
Your kind cannot read.
- XÓCHITL: "Dear Sir, It is my duty to inform you
that Silvio has fulfilled his portion of the agreement:
he has aptly seduced Juana Inés.
Ever faithfully, Pedro."
- NARRATOR: She spits on the floor again.
The floor rumbles.
- XÓCHITL: My kind... can do anything.
- JUANA: Don Pedro!
- PEDRO: Juana, I objected the moment
the Viceroy contemplated this arrangement.
- JUANA: How much did Silvio stand to gain?
- PEDRO: I warned you, Juana.
- JUANA: How much?
- PEDRO: One thousand reales. - JUANA: To do what?
- PEDRO: Juana-- - JUANA: I want to know!
- PEDRO: To meet you, to distract you.
- JUANA: I want to know it all.
What else was the man supposed to do?
- PEDRO: To dishonor you. - JUANA: Destroy me.
- PEDRO: Juana, how could you fall for that man?
- JUANA: I did not fall, Pedro.
I leapt.
- JUANA: Stupid men,
Blaming the women you abuse
Not seeing you are the cause
Of the crimes you accuse
Your desire is
unequaled
Her disdain will not be had
Why chide her to be good
When you want her to be bad?
She turns away, she gives in
Regardless, you are cruel
If rejected, you complain
If loved, you ridicule.
So who is more at fault
Despite the wrong, therein?
She, who sins for pay
Or he who pays for sin?
Don Pedro, when you see him,
give him this chain.
- PEDRO: I've been sent to punish him.
- JUANA: Punish him?
- PEDRO: Yes.
- JUANA: Who sends you? - PEDRO: The Vicereine.
- JUANA: The Vicereine? - PEDRO: Yes.
- JUANA: Why?
- PEDRO: Because of you, Juana.
- JUANA: Because of me?
- PEDRO: Because Silvio has deceived you,
and the Vicereine demands he be punished.
The Vicereine loves you, Juana.
- JUANA: A woman should be seen and not heard.
She should fall when pushed.
She should forgive when betrayed.
But the Vicereine is not that kind of woman.
And now, neither am I.
- PEDRO: Juana--
- JUANA: He is hiding at the oak that divides the stream.
- XÓCHITL: Juana. - JUANA: Go.
- PEDRO: Juana- - JUANA: GO!
- XÓCHITL: Juana, you mustn't...
- JUANA: It is justice. - XÓCHITL: It is vengeance.
When you regain your reason,
you will recoil with shame at what you have done.
- JUANA: No, the shame is Silvio's.
- XÓCHITL: Reason is a sword
With purpose on both sides
The base to defend
The point to make others die
If, conscious of the danger
I negotiate the blade,
Blame not the witless sword
For the bloody choice I made.
I quote YOU!
- JUANA: What have I done?
- XÓCHITL: Mi'ja-
- JUANA: Am I not right to punish Silvio?
He lied to me, he betrayed me.
He has destroyed my life.
- XÓCHITL: And, what is your life?
- JUANA: My writing.
- XÓCHITL: Has Silvio destroyed your writing?
- JUANA: No.
- XÓCHITL: Silvio has lied to you.
He has betrayed you.
But he has not destroyed you.
- JUANA: Oh Xóchitl, it is my pride!
- XÓCHITL: Juana, pride is what the Gods provide you
to protect the gift they gave you.
But you're not protecting your God-given gifts.
This is much worse.
Destroying Silvio is not about pride and justice,
it is about vanity and vengeance.
- JUANA: Xóchitl, please stop Pedro!
I am...
the worst of all.
- SILVIO: I waited by the oak, and you did not come.
- JUANA: Why did you lie to me?
- SILVIO: We could have had a life together...
- JUANA: A life together--
- SILVIO: We could have built a new world, you and I...
- JUANA: With the wealth of our wit, our hearts, our minds.
- SILVIO: Juana,
all I have, all I am, is yours.
- JUANA: Oh, Silvio...
- SILVIO: I never killed a man before.
I heard a sound.
I called your name.
- JUANA: My name--
- SILVIO: But it was Pedro, with a sword
and the chain I gave you in his hands.
- JUANA: My love... I betrayed you.
- SILVIO: No, Juana, you ennobled me.
Silvio drags Juana's hand across a deep wound on his side.
He holds her bloodied palm up to her.
He is dying.
Silvio passionately kisses the back of her hand.
- JUANA: Oh, no.
No.
No!
No!!
- VICEREINE: Father Núñez, thank you for coming so quickly.
- PADRE: How is she?
- XÓCHITL: Padre, she refuses to speak.
She refuses to eat.
She refuses to sleep.
All she does is write poetry.
- PADRE: What happened?
- VICEREINE: Truly, Padre, I know very little about this.
Don Pedro surprised this charlatan- Silvio-
and was forced to use his weapon against him.
- XÓCHITL: Each killed the other.
- VICEREINE: And the Viceroy is inconsolable;
he insisted on a royal burial for Pedro.
- XÓCHITL: And Silvio's body was thrown in an unmarked grave.
- PADRE: May God have mercy on his soul.
- VICEREINE: Padre, nothing I say...
nothing I do... helps her.
I convinced Don Fabio to continue with the wedding.
But yet... Juana refuses to marry.
- PADRE: This is serious, my lady.
- VICEREINE: Padre, I want Juana to look at me again.
I want her back from where she has retreated inside her mind.
I cannot lose Juana.
- PADRE: Does she pray?
- XÓCHITL: No, she writes.
- VICEREINE: Padre, you must help her.
And bring her back to me.
- PADRE: I will speak with her.
- VICEREINE: Juana, my dear,
Padre Núñez would like to speak to you.
Will you speak with him?
Remember, Don Fabio will be coming later,
so you might as well develop the habit of speaking again.
- XÓCHITL: Just say something, mi'ja.
- PADRE: May I read it?
Juana, your words...
are beautiful.
- JUANA: Thank you.
- PADRE: What are you going to do, my child?
Will you marry Don Fabio?
- JUANA: No.
- PADRE: Why not?
- JUANA: Because I will not be a good wife.
- PADRE: Why?
- JUANA: Because of this.
- PADRE: Child, you must rest.
- JUANA: It is the only thing that is keeping me alive.
- PADRE: May I?
We judge
Yet cannot see
The sovereign peak
And the humble valley
Are the same distance from Heaven.
So much to say.
So few words.
The meter.
The imagery.
- JUANA: Padre,
you like poetry?
- PADRE: I've loved poetry since I was a child.
Sometimes, I write a little myself.
- JUANA: You write?
- PADRE: Yes, sometimes... at night,
after I am done with my duties at the convent.
- JUANA: The convent?
- PADRE: I'm the confessor and protector
for the sisters at the convent of San Jerónimo.
Juana, God has given you a gift.
- JUANA: Padre, I wish to join the convent.
- VICEREINE: No, Juana.
- PADRE: You realize, Juana Inés,
that you must become a bride of Christ.
You must submit to His will.
And you must never leave the convent.
- JUANA: As long as I'm allowed to write.
- PADRE: As much as your duties will permit.
- JUANA: Padre, will you promise me
I will be allowed to write?
- PADRE: God has given you a blessing and a burden, my child.
You will always be allowed to write in the convent.
- XÓCHITL: Juana, mi'ja!
- JUANA: I will be Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
- VICEREINE: Oh, Juana...
- NARRATOR: Everything colorful and decorative
that resembled the court
is returned to the trunk and taken away.
Stark grays remain.
It is now the present once again.
- JUANA: Who's there?
Who's there?
You've taken everything and given nothing.
Why would you possibly need to be outside my door?
- NOVICE: For you, Sor Juana.
The paper, the pen.
They are a gift from Father Núñez.
He wanted you to have them so, so you could write.
- JUANA: Father Núñez has forgiven me?
- NOVICE: You must eat, Sor Juana.
You've been without food for twelve days.
Here, have some bread, please.
- JUANA: Padre Núñez will allow me to write poems?
- NOVICE: Yes!
- FILOTHEA: As soon as you destroy the cross-stitch,
you... you're free to write again.
- NOVICE: Padre Núñez, in all his graciousness,
gives you these gifts on the condition that--
on your promise
that you will write poems in honor of the Church.
- FILOTHEA: You are always to share your writing with him.
You are to write on subjects he deems appropriate
for a woman and for a nun.
- NOVICE: Your beautiful poems will honor God.
- JUANA: What wild ambition drives us
To forget ourselves,
our past?
Hand me the instrument.
- NARRATOR: Juana closes her hand around the blade
and runs the knife along the inside of her palm.
- NOVICE & FILOTHEA: Sor Juana!
[Juana cries out in pain]
- JUANA: Tell Padre Núñez
that I will never tear out these lines.
Tell him that I will never be constrained
by what he deems appropriate
for a woman and for a nun to write.
- FILOTHEA: You are too proud, Sor Juana.
- JUANA: I am proud for what God has given me...
and I will not betray His gift
to assuage the vanity of the new Bishop.
- FILOTHEA: God forgive you.
- NOVICE: Sor Juana, please!
- JUANA: Tell Father Núñez I will not write any poems
because I never intend to write again.
Never.
- NOVICE: Sor Juana, be reasonable.
Father Núñez has not altogether prohibited you from...
- JUANA: Let God hear my testimony,
let my words be etched in blood.
I, Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, vow never to write again.
Go tell el Padre.
- JUANA: I vowed.
I vowed.
I will not speak to you anymore.
You are all dead.
You are all gone.
I have truly lost everything.
I have taken a vow.
I have given my word.
- JUANA: You should go.
- XÓCHITL: I will never leave you.
- NARRATOR: Juana instinctively picks up her pen,
but then puts it back down.
She pushes the pen and paper off her desk.
- XÓCHITL: Come Angels!
View this Wonder
A cut Rose
Lives even longer
She does not wither
But quietly revives
Despite a cruel death
Her aroma survives
There is profit
In cutting her down
Come Gardeners!
Look and see
A cut Rose
Lives an eternity.
*
- NARRATOR: In Juana's room at the convent,
the Novice picks up Juana's pen.
- Carey Cannon: Thank you to all so much!
[applause]
Come back and join us.
Hi!
Oh my God, that one always gets me,
like my third night in a row
and like clockwork they come.
So beautiful!
Hi, come in, cast!
Come in, Joy!
Thank you all so, so, so much.
It was beautiful.
I-- I regret to say that Brenda DeVita,
our fearless leader, has succumbed
to a mosquito bite in the eye,
and she is swollen,
and is with us in spirit, but she can't see,
so I'm gonna be--
I'm gonna be running the Talk Back
and fielding questions and Jacki is gonna be kind enough
to go through questions in the Q and A.
She's so sorry, but she is--
She's texting like crazy and Jimmy--
I don't know-- is typing for her.
So, thank you all for such a beautiful performance.
I just wanna remind those of us,
our audience who's joining us when we stream on PBS,
that this was previously recorded,
So, you're not able to call in to ask questions
once this gets to PBS.
This is just for those of us who are here live tonight.
So, thank you all for being here.
I wanna-- I would love to start
just by Jake Penner, our director, to talk a little bit
about how you came to this play.
There were some questions early on
when I was still monitoring them
about the historic nature of the play.
How much of this that you know
is connected to what's factual
and how much of this that Karen Zacarías created?
And there was also, Melisa, as well,
I know that you've kind of gotten in touch
with a little more of Sor Juana's work
in the past couple of weeks.
So, I'd love to talk about the historical figure
to start out with, if that's possible.
- Jake Penner: Yeah, sure.
Melisa, why don't we just tag team in this.
If you got anything to add, please.
So, yeah, there--
We don't know a whole lot about her.
I mean, we we've got some key names, key dates, locations,
but, you know, as far as the vocabulary goes
or a full biography, I mean,
we're, we're kinda piecing some history together,
as far as her actual life goes.
As far as I can gather though, the playwright, Karen Zacarías,
is more or less trying to piece together a speculative biography
that might lead to her decision to ultimately enter the convent,
which is really what the play is about.
But she's using a lot of things that we do know
actually happened to Juana Inés de la Cruz
and uh some of them things that she had done in her life.
You know we start this play with...
I like to think of it as a...
as a jail break or an escape attempt,
but not so much for a body, but for an idea, right?
We're trying to get a letter out into the world.
A response to the Bishop of Puebla,
who more or less backed up one of his underlings
within the church who said
that women should not be allowed to write,
they shouldn't be educated,
and Juana had some back and forth
with uh both of these men.
I think she was sort of fighting
two rhetorical battles at once
and she was more or less saying that,
"No, no, no women absolutely
"should be educated and it is, in fact, God's will
that they be educated and here's why I think that."
So, that's the case when Sor Sarah comes in
and she comments, "So many books.
Juana had a library of, I think, 4,000 volumes.
I think it was the largest library in the region
at the time.
We know that she was in the convent,
although it was a far less oppressive environment
than I think uh Karen had dramatized for the play.
It was actually quite a progressive convent.
Sor Juana had her own apartment.
She was allowed to read and write and study
and she had some students when she was there,
some of the younger nuns,
who I think would probably resemble the novice Maria
in the play.
We know that there were poems written to or for a Silvio,
but we don't actually know if Sylvia existed.
He may have been an exercise for Juana so we see
a little bit of ambiguity around Juana's,
you know, gender identity and sexual identity,
and so, I think that's maybe where that was born out of.
So, our playwright is piecing together some,
a narrative out of the things that we do know about her
to speculate what a life would have been like
prior to entering the convent
and ultimately passing away there,
and she didn't live very long.
She's maybe 42, 43.
Yeah, I encourage you to look her up
and read some of her translation.
She's quite funny.
She's got a really great dry wit.
- Melisa Pereyra: Yes, and I'm--
Pretty soon, I'm gonna be directing House of Desires ,
which is a play that she actually has written
which is also very funny and it has to do with
kind of, like,
I think at the core of what she's asking in that play
is just, "Who are you?"
which is what a lot of plays ask us.
But I think because as a human being
that was such a huge part of all of our identities,
but for her to be a woman in her time
doing what she was doing
was so important and revolutionary.
So, to ask herself that carried a little more weight maybe
than when I ask myself that today,
even with all the existentialism of a millennial,
so I honor her for that.
and I think I keep asking myself, why now?
Why has this playwright not reemerging,
but her name has come up a lot in my life recently
in the last two months
and um, I think that she's here to tell us something
and I'm excited to continue to study her
and learn more about her
to figure out what she's trying to--
If I could be so lucky-- to tell me something.
We have-- Jacki's
checking all the questions from the audience,
but I'd love to know: anybody else in the cast--
Sebastian, Ron, Janyce, Cher, Jeliannys, Joy--
any of you, Triney,
familiar with this playwright, with Sor Juana
before you begin this project?
- Sebastian Arboleda: This is the first time
I've ever heard of Sor Juana,
to be honest
and really studied and looked her up
and it's actually been really great.
I mean, something that really hit me the first day was,
you know, there is this Xóchitl
and this background of her being "Criolla", like
that she's half-indigenous, essentially,
and so that aspect, like, the fact that it goes into--
There's actually like so much in this play.
It's just very dense.
And that was something that from the first day,
I was like, "Wow, I didn't catch that when I was reading,"
And when, you know, when people are reading it out loud
and people are putting their truth on it,
you hear it differently and you feel it differently.
And it was-- there's so much.
There's actually a lot--
I wish we had more time,
you know, to be able to really dive and dig because
I was starting to, I think,
I feel like all of us were really starting
to really have fun,
and like, you know, it was like,
you know, um so yeah.
that's yeah.
That's all I have to say on that.
- Jeliannys Michelle: I study her in high school
and Iremember my professors,
they made memorize the poem Hombres necios ,
which is the poem she says in the play,
uh "stupid Men"
and I remember
like that was the last time I touched base with her
and, but I,
but I had her in the back of my mind
as like this, amazing
credible, feminist and women and like writer.
So when this got to me,
I was like, you know, it's-- it's-- I--
I can't remember a lot of things about her,
but I did remember her figure.
Like, you know,
she was that big, that important, that prominent
so-- because that was years ago, you know, so yeah.
That was the only time I had like a connection with her
in high school and that poem,
always it's like there,
like, I still can say it in Spanish, like, a little bit
and it was like really cool to go back to her
with this play.
But, yeah.
- Carey Cannon: Sara Young reminds us
that there's been information about the reading
of House of Desire that Melisa is directing
in last Wednesday's Diversions
if you got that via APT.
- Sara Young: You can reach out to us.
We'll make sure you've connected with that link
if you'd like to see that.
- Carey Cannon: Any questions from our group, Jacki?
- Jacki Singleton: There's a lot of--
There's sort of a lot of curiosity about uh the way that
Sor Juana's feminist uh proto, you know,
being one of the first feminists in the Americas
and about how that resonates with our current day,
if anybody wants to speak to that.
How relevant and how timely this story is
right at the moment.
Once again, a story of a woman speaking for all womankind
with whatever resources she has at her disposal.
[serious laughter]
I mean, yeah, I'm like, that's, yeah...
I feel like that's a statement.
I don't know what else to add to that.
That's, that's the statement of the night probably.
Um, but yeah that she's a pretty powerful...
a pretty powerful person, who is... uh like,
her spirit lives on in so many different ways
and it's so beautiful to be able to say her words,
even in the small chunks 'cause some of her poetry,
you know, that was in the play.
I don't know if the audience knows this,
but it's actually her poetry
so I think that that's important, too.
I feel like it's...
I don't, I don't know how, I guess...
I don't know how anything that we do today is not,
I cannot NOT make it relevant to women,
speaking right now.
I don't-- I don't know, it's never--
But it also, tonight in particular,
the part, and it breaks my heart all week,
but when she says, you know, I put on boys' clothing
and I felt like myself for the first time
and all of us here, artists who do that for a living,
um who don't get to do that right now.
I think of that, and I think of Rosalyn
'cause she's fresh in my mind even from these readings.
So, just on an artistic level,
not just as a uh um uh what do I wanna say?
...a globalized perspective, but just as a personal level,
it also spoke to me in that way,
and that's how relevant it is
that when we put on this costume,
sometimes some of us feel more like ourselves
than we do when we're wearing a regular.
- Carey Cannon: Cher, you unmuted for a second.
Did you have something to?
- Cher Álveraz: Yeah, I just, I just--
When I first read the script,
you know, I think it's, it was so easy for me
to immediately go, "Oh my God. Wow.
This woman is so cool!"
Like, just just brilliant and, you know,
one of the things that I saw was like,
Oh, she's so ahead of her time.
But that's the thing.
I think she was exactly where she needed to be mentally.
Um it's not even that she was ahead of her time.
It's just like this woman was a pioneer for, you know,
the Latinas that are in this group right here, right now.
You know, just like "own your voice"
and I think that is so important.
And it's not that even like me
or Melisa or anyone involved in this
is ahead of our time.
It's like, no, it's just time for the patriarchy to leave.
[nervous laugh]
and I think she just emphasized and wrote about that
so beautifully and vividly and passionately.
So, that's just what I wanted to add.
- Melisa Pereyra: Yeah, that just like made me so excited
because I think just how it resonates,
resonates with me, is like
just a simple like question of, like,
what spaces are women allowed to be in?
Allowed, right?
Like, where-- how-- Where do you feel welcome
and where do you not?
And why is that,
especially in like academic settings or anywhere really,
where, you know, you feel scared to say something
because, you know,
I don't have X-Y-Z, you know, experience
but, you know, your experiences are--
Your experiences are valid whatever you bring to the table.
I remember being in like the liberal arts setting,
and like even in like feminist classes,
feminist classes that never taught me about Sor Juana.
If she's one of the first feminist writers,
how come that was never taught
in any of those classes I took?
That just blows my mind.
But like, being in those spaces and you know
feeling silenced as a woman, as a woman of color,
um so it's crazy that this was something
that she was facing back then that is still, you know,
as a millennial, still being,
still going through today in 2020.
- Carey Cannon: Jacki, what do we got?
- Jacki Singleton: So there's a couple of questions
about the play itself.
Where the, sort of, how it was developed?
What the production history is?
There's a note that it seems very Shakespearean.
- Jacki Singleton: I wondered if maybe Jake or somebody
could talk about that.
- Jake Penner: Yeah, sure,
I would love to hear from the actors
about the parallels with the Shakespearean storylines
because I feel like, yeah, that's it,
that's a good eye, everybody.
You know, I think it was--
It premiered in '98, late-90s, mid-to-late 90s,
and then, it seems to have cycled back into prominence
a couple of times.
They did a production, I think,
more recent sort of public production
was at the Goodman Theater in Chicago
and I know that the playwright was in the room for that,
and there was maybe a little bit of rewriting going on.
Everything that I've read about that process.
It was a very collaborative process,
so, you know, directors, actors:
I think they all had a bit of input of how that
ultimately came to be recrafted or reshaped a little bit.
We know about this because our friend Aaron Posner
passed us the script,
and said, "Hey, give this a look."
And I think that I was the first one to grab it
when it came into the office and I said, "Yeah,
"absolutely, this is--
This feels like well-tread territory for APT."
Yeah, I don't know
Cast, what do you?
Yeah, we mentioned Rosalyn already.
Any other similarities?
I see a little bit of, you know, King Lear chastise Cordelia
in the very top of this play with Padre Núnez and Melisa.
Anything else? - Carey Cannon: Ron?
- Ronald Román-Meléndez: Yeah, sure, what, I mean,
it's part of what makes Shakespeare amazing
and the reason we're still doing his plays
this many hundreds of years later
is that like he wrote characters that so often, like,
at their core, they were struggling
with either power or their relationship to power
or their identity and their relationship to their identity,
and, like, personally when I first read the script,
it seemed to me like Silvio was a guy
that was plucked out of a Shakespeare play
and tossed into it, you know.
He's this lover who's come from a different land
to, you know, sweet talk his way into the...
into the beds of women,
and along the way, all of his assumptions
on what the world is are changed drastically
by this individual, by the mind of this person.
And to me, that's always kind of what's cool,
was that play with a lot of Shakespearian characters
is that they fall in love with each other's intellect.
And as Sor Juana is such a poet,
that it's the parallels between her and Shakespeare even.
The way that their hearts open up
and how much they pour themselves into their artists.
It's, it's, you know,
when a poet speaks from their heart
like, it's, it's evident on the page,
and so those parallels are just right there.
- Carey Cannon: Cher, I jumped on you.
Did you have something to say?
- Oh, that's okay, chicken.
Um, yeah I just, for me,
I think the similarities
of the Shakespearian world as well is...
And how that's,
I don't know if it's influenced this script
but I'm sure it has,
but I think for me, especially having read it
and done this reading, it's, it's the...
I think it's the closest thing to the truth
that one can have,
and I feel like Shakespeare achieved that in--
through many of his plays,
but, I don't know, there's something
about Sor Juana specifically,
that feels beyond enlightened
and I think that it's a very hard thing
to achieve and to practice,
but I feel like that for me was a similarity,
is the amount of truth
that this script holds, yeah.
- Carey Cannon: Triney, did you have anything
or we'll reach out again?
- Triney Sandoval: Speaking to the Shakespeare point,
I mean, there's the element of the court,
which is one thing,
but it's also that thing of,
the plots don't matter.
That's not what made Shakespeare.
I mean, he stole most of them.
- [chuckling]
- Triney Sandoval: What made Shakespeare
was writing character,
and I think that's what this play does so well.
it's, it's that...
it's a terrible thing that used to happen,
like in the in the '80s a lot
and some in the '90s
where people would restructure the plays
and put words in other people
and they, it never worked.
It never worked because he was so good
at writing a voice for a character.
And it's what I think
that she's done so beautifully with this.
- Carey Cannon: I'd love to just,
cause we have the opportunity to have Joy with us
and Joy was our voice and text coach
and she coaches a lot of things,
including Shakespeare.
thank you, so grateful to have you on this project.
Can you talk a little bit about
this as a dense poetic text,
like the '60s?
[people laughing]
- Joy Lanceta Coronel: I see a couple of smiles in there.
Yeah, I worked with a few of the cast members,
just on the text work.
I saw a question in there that said,
what, you know, what is the voice work
or what did you do for voice work?
You know, we, decided kind of early on
we weren't going to do dialect work.
It was really just going to be everybody's own idiolect.
we would stay true to the pronunciation of the names,
but really the focus was on the text.
And you do, you have, you know,
you have verse you have a prose,
in the entire show,
and I think some of the challenges
that we had were some of the subtext
and really understanding, like,
what is the image that we're given here?
How does, that image drive me
and really kind of acting on the line
because these, the way that she wrote was very,
it is contemporary, but it's not,
it was full of imagery.
It was-- You couldn't just sit on a set on the line.
It really had to drive forward.
So we spent a lot of time on that,
and then with the poetry, as well.
you know, I spent some time
with the Jeliannys just on Sor Juana's poetry
and just write where spent,
an hour just on one of them looking at,
you know, what is the subtext behind this?
What is the imagery?
What is it and... [laughs]
Just repeating myself.
But, yeah, it's really just about
finding what was underneath all of it
and really understanding how that matched
with the characters want and drive.
- Carey Cannon: I thank you,
and I loved hearing Jeliannys
that you studied her in high school.
That makes me happy [laughs]
- Jeliannys actually-- - In Spanish.
- Jeliannys actually shared with me
that the prologue was,
actually a lot more difficult to work with in Spanish
than it was in English.
So, we had that conversation.
- Jeliannys Michelle: Oh, yeah,
that was one of the challenges for me,
like, because one thing that I try to do,
especially with Shakespeare,
is to, you know, go to my Spanish brain
and like, try to understand it from there
because it's different, you know,
we think-- like, I think in Spanish
and with this, and it happened of course with Shakespeare,
of course it's different in the sense of like
Shakespeare's in English period.
But like, this is not,
this was written in Spanish first then,
and I thought that was going to be easier.
I thought when I,
found it that that poem, the first one,
was like because it was really hard to find it
because it's a sonnet of her.
So it's not like,
she has like really important poems
that everybody knows but like,
that was the sonnet that she wrote
and like, it's there somewhere,
which I was amazed that Karen was like oh,
this is the one that I'm gonna use for sure,
which is great.
And the thing is that when I found it,
I was like, oh yes, I found it great,
and then I was like...
This doesn't do anything for me
because you know, it was like,
that heaviness of the language
and which is that thing that Shakespeare has,
you know, it's unlike,
it's a lot of the language and how you use it.
And like, and that's the challenge for me,
especially with Shakespeare,
is like how you get that in your body,
like how you put that language in your mouth
that everybody can hear it and understand it.
And like, you know the rhetoric of that,
the weediness the weedy of that.
Like, and Sor Juana has that in Spanish,
but it's that thing it's like,
I didn't know how to put that
those words in a way that...
And when I read it in English I was like,
it's so much like digested,
which is not bad but it's like,
it's like more distilled for, you know,
for an English speaking out audience.
And that was really interesting to work with
unlike but oh, my brain thinks Spanish,
but I understand it better in English, so it's great.
[woman laughs]
- JOY LANCETA CORONEL: I think that's another thing too
with the text.
It was, there's just so much you could be,
you could break down every single line
and analyze it for a while.
[woman laughs] - Carey Cannon: Yeah.
- Joy Lanceta Coronel: And, you know, we had less than a week,
to work on it and we've got a lot done,
but I mean we could probably
spend another month working on this I think.
- Carey Cannon: Yeah, reminding everybody,
this is just a week's worth of work
and they're reading the play
while they're looking at each other,
pretending to look at each other.
Jacki, you have to keep me mindful of time.
- Jacki Singleton: Absolutely, I think we have time
for maybe one or two more questions.
We have a question about,
about how people respond to the term of,
Black Indigenous People Of Color
and about that being part of this play series.
Does anybody want to talk about that?
- JOY LANCETA CORONEL: I'll talk about that term.
I actually, I've written a few journal articles on,
on this, not specifically this term, but terminology
and using it in the theater.
I think it's hard because language
when it comes to oppression and racism it's...
It's always evolving
and it's never perfect
and there's always something you're missing
and it's, and it can never encompass
the nuance of race and identity and ethnicity.
So I think it's for right now,
I think the term is,
it's working
and I think the term is doing its job
because, you know, for, for many years
we're called people of color.
And it's just this big umbrella term.
You're not white,
and all of a sudden in the past few years,
we have this new term, you know,
black indigenous and people of color,
and I think this is very specific to the US,
it's very black and indigenous
acknowledges the historical ties to racism and oppression
and slavery and colonialism.
So that is what it's highlighting.
So it's important that we use it.
And it's very, again, it's very specific to the US,
as a Filipino American,
I am in the POC "box",
and so I, you know,
the thing that it's missing
and the thing that makes it not perfect is
that it does kind of,
glaze over all the rest of the nonwhite folks.
And so, you know,
I think decolonizing,
I think anti-racism,
it's not a destination, it's a process,
and I think there will be a time
where somebody will have a name for what I am
[laughs]
and for the rest of us,
and it'll happen eventually.
I feel very positive about that,
but, you know B-I-P-O-C
it's not perfect, but it's working.
- Carey Cannon: Thank you, Joy.
Anybody else have anything to add to that?
Or Jacki, do you have another question?
We've lost Jacki.
- Jacki Singleton: Oh, no, sorry, I'm still here.
[Jacki laughing] It's that pesky mute button.
[Jacki laughing]
- Oh!
- Jacki Singleton: No, I think that one of the...
One of the things that Sarah Brennan said was
that she was struck by the parallels
of how the playwright includes some Sor Juana's
own poetry into the play,
reminded her of the spring series of
Jimmy DeVita's play that we did for PBS before this.
It's just interesting that this, you know, this play,
reflected those other plays that we have done recently.
- Carey Cannon: That's my cousin.
Hi, Sarah. [woman laughing]
Sarah Brennan, hope the smoke's not too bad.
Anything else we've got going on, Jacki?
I bet this group is-- it's been a big week.
[Carey laughs]
- Jacki Singleton: I feel like we have,
we have addressed the questions from the audience.
- Carey Cannon: I'm so, so grateful to you all.
I'm excited we've got some other readings coming up,
so asking our audience to stay tuned.
They'll get invited to those.
And, and again, thank you.
Those of you who are new to us,
I'm so, so grateful for your time and your talents.
Thanks.
- Thank you.
- Carey Cannon: Thank you, Jacki, you're a rock star.
- Thank you, everybody.
- Thank you, everyone.
[orchestra music]
- Announcer: Funding for APT's "Out of the Woods"
is provided by
Arcadia Books,
Dane Arts,
Nancy A. McDaniel,
Orange Tree Imports,
Wilson Creek Pottery,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming
and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.