PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In much the same way Oscar Wilde’s 1893 satire “A Woman of No Importance” is actually about a woman of great consequence, Spanish playwright Lope de Vega‘s 1613 ironic comedy “La Dama Boba” (“A Woman of Little Sense”) is a story that features a silly character with hidden depth and ambition. Here, we learn that in the male-dominated world of early 17th-century Spain, being daffy — and being capable of turning it off at will — can be an intelligent strategy for a young woman to use to control her fate.
Whether this moral still resonates in the 21st century is one of the challenges facing Jorge Fullana’s recent adaptation of the work, which is being staged by Teatro ECAS in a regional premiere.
Another is that while Lope de Vega was one of the most prolific authors from the Golden Age of Spanish literature, literary scholars dismiss much of his work — including this one — as shallow and commercial compared to his contemporary, Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote.” More specifically, many find that his plays suffer from a “haste of composition” — an eagerness to produce work for his audience’s insatiable desire for novelty and the playwright’s own impatience. The play is chock-full of hastily cut plot points and abruptly tied loose ends that take scant account of probability or psychology.
Can all this be made entertaining for modern-day audiences under Francis Parra’s direction?
The play revolves around two sisters who are famous beauties with astonishingly different temperaments. Their wealthy father, Don Octavio (here, played as their wealthy mother Octavia by Miosotis Ihelefeld), is intent on marrying them off. The young suitors are the dashing but impoverished poet, Laurencio (Jordan Cardona), who is earmarked for the eldest sister, Nise (Jahaira Suarez), and the well-educated caballero, Liceo (Wiston Delgado), who has his eyes set on Finea (Catherine Cardenas).
The problem is that Nise is too clever for her own good, while younger sister Finea is notoriously not. There is also a huge disparity in their respective dowries, which was created by their uncle to either compensate for the discrepancy in the sisters’ potential for marriage or because the uncle was none too bright himself. Finea’s larger dowry attracts the attention of her sister’s fiancé, and the two suitors decide to exchange potential wives.
Let the gender games begin.
Fullana’s adaptation does little to fix the “haste of composition” that plagues the source material, for some plot points still go nowhere and conflict resolution — particularly Finea’s transformation and the final assignment of which suitor ends up with which sister — is remarkably abrupt.
But by turning a three-act, three-hour play requiring 15 actors into a one-act, 90-minute excursion with only five actors (everyone takes on two roles), those faulty plot points go nowhere fast and everything in this production is abrupt. This creates a sense of consistency, if not clarity.
And by setting this play in a contemporary time — nicely established by hoodie-centric clothing, Milton Cordero’s visually dynamic projected imagery on a back wall, red plastic crates serving as furnishings and scenic design, and turning some of Lope de Vega’s lyrical dialogue into rap and def poetry set to music — the central themes that drive this play are brought up to speed and made entertaining.
Not changed in adaptation is the play’s very broad humor. In fact, having the serving women of the two sisters, Clara and Celia, played by the men portraying Laurencio and Liceo — courtesy of a colorful hairbow and slightly adjusted physicality — adds to the comedy and the play’s probing into gender roles.
There is plenty of Lope de Vega’s original text as well, which never gets undermined by the modernization of his work. Indeed, some of Parra’s best direction calls those words to our attention and brings them to life in meta-theatrical moments.
Where she falters is not having her talented actors — particularly the adorable Cardenas, who is wonderful at handling all the physical humor that helps define Finea — pause to put a truly human face on the transformative power of love. Instead, they rush through those moments of transition as if they were just another comic set up.
I wouldn’t have thought that the brief presence of honest emotion in a play like this would be such a powerful thing on stage had it not been part of the recent performance of the similarly romantic 18th-century commedia dell’arte-informed play “The Triumph of Love” at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. It’s unclear whether the audiences of the period would have appreciated such a gentle touch amidst all the humor, but today’s audiences do.
And about those red plastic crates. While an interesting production concept, their presence occasionally wins over the actors’ efforts to get from one place to another on the very small performance space and their constant stacking/unstacking, removal/retrieval by actors is often more distracting busy work than purposeful staging.
This play may not be the best example of classic work by a Hispanic playwright, but kudos to the premier Latinx theater in New England for serving it up — red crates and all.
LA DAMA BOBA
Written by Lope de Vega and adapted by Jorge Fullana. Directed by Francis Parra.
At Teatro ECAS, 679 Valley St., Providence, R.I. Through May 25. Tickets $35—$55, plus fees. 401-421-3227, teatroecas.org.
Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him on Facebook.
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