How Sister Juana struck a blow for the sisterhood
THIS is an impressive revival of a highly intelligent play that does a great deal to break down the all t oo predictable opposition between religious practice and liberal freedom.
If that sounds dry and cerebral, then it’s worth remembering that no play that’s not also broad and theatrical can survive in the cauldron of Shakespeare’s Globe.
And Helen Edmundson ’s play, first seen at the RSC in Stratford three years ago, doesn ’ t just survive: it thrives.
Her subject is 17th century mexican nun, Sister Juana. As well as being a devout member of her convent she was a poet and dramatist. In that era of the
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Spanish inquisition, Juana risked being branded a heretic in her writing , but there was also the question of being marginalised as a woman.
Actress Naomi Frederick is exceptional in the role. At first radiant and a peace -maker in her vocation as a nun and writer, she is fierce in her fight to retain both when her writing comes under threat from her archbishop. She is a fascinating woman of the mind, f l esh and cl oth. When she is shorn of hair, habit and dignity late on, it is moving and shocking.
John Dove’s finely judged production never loses sight of the vigorous, sometimes comic human relations around her.
There is warm comedy from Gwyneth Keyworth as the excitable young novice who falls for Gary Shelford’s corpulent lothario. Even bigger laughs are won by Sophia Nomvete as Juana’s maid: a woman of lusty appetite and blunt speech.
It is in the end a parable of women’s struggle for equality through education, but on the way i t touches on no l ess complex or important issues of moral, cultural and spiritual freedoms. Terrific.
QUENTIN LETTS IS AWAY