Playhouse Tuesdays: The Heresy of Love

by erica wachs, prose reader

“But I cannot do that. I tried it once before, do you remember? My pen, my ink, papers, books, all were locked away from me and yet I did not cease to write; composing verses in my head, memorizing them, studying the nature of the things around me, speculating, theorizing. It is what I do. It is what I am. I do it even in my sleep.”

Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz was a woman ahead of her time. Though she did not speak these exact words, penned by Helen Edmundson in 2012, she probably thought them at one point in her life. Sister Juana was a nun who lived in the mid-to-late-1600s. She was a self-taught scholar (she actually taught herself to read and write Latin at age 3… for reference I tried to read and write Latin in school at age 14 and quit after a year. This girl was persistent). Most notably, she was a poet and a playwright, wrote plays commissioned by the Viceroy and Vicereine of Mexico, became known as “the Tenth muse” and was part of the Spanish Golden Age.

This debate—to write or not to write—is the central conflict contained in this gorgeously written play. Is Sister Juana’s writing the way she expresses her faith, or is it the very thing that prevents her from being truly holy? At the beginning of the show, Sister Juana has just written an incredibly successful play. She is well respected in both the court and in the convent where she lives. She is allowed to break rules; she can gossip with her visitors in the privacy of her cell rather than the common locutory, where wooden bars separate one side of the room from the other. It seems as if nothing can stop her. She is powerful. And therefore, she is threatening to newly appointed Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas, a man who is known for his “fine, exacting mind,” and his “unremitting discipline.” (If any of you have read Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, he is basically the Angelo of this play. If you haven’t read that play, Angelo is Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas.)

In essence, this is a play about playwriting. It is a play about writing in general. Sister Juana is just as confined in the convent as everyone else, but she is so dangerous to the outside world because her words and ideas are heard. Writing about writing, to me, is one of the hardest feats to accomplish. I’ve long struggled—ironically so—to find the words as to why I love it. If I’ve ever attempted to describe it, I will usually write about me, in bed, late at night, typing out the latest line for something on my phone. It’s a rush. I’ve never had more energy for life than when I’m writing. Now, whenever people ask me why I want to be a playwright, there is that same necessity behind it. It is what I do. It is what I am. It’s a sentiment almost every writer can relate to, but to hear it be spoken by the Tenth muse—even if they weren’t her exact words—is gratifying. This play reminded me why writing is important. It is a major force of change. It can be just as powerful as an Archbishop.

Another theme I thought the play explored in a meaningful way was the notion of women’s education. Yes, Sister Juana was inherently a feminist, but the play (and the characters in it) does not let her get off that easily. Sister Juana ultimately can’t go around preaching for equal rights for women. This is 1695! Women’s education is something I’m very familiar with. I went to an all-girls school from the time I was in Kindergarten to the time I graduated high school. I spent thirteen years believing I could go out and do anything because women as a whole could do anything. Growing up, I was almost sheltered in my feminism: what’s a glass ceiling? What do you mean women don’t get equal pay? Being educated in such a progressive place (and I am in no way complaining; it was a privilege to learn there), it became very easy to lose sight of the world outside my school’s wrought-iron gates.

“And why should men reserve all right to speak and write theology? If my thoughts are as learned, as exacting as a man’s why should they not be heard? … If my arguments are flawed, if I am not as well informed as I should be, then criticize me, yes. And I will go away and think again and learn some more, and try again to reach towards the truth. Why should our faith fear knowledge? For knowledge comes from Him.”

Sister Juana speaks these words during her final bitter confrontation with the Archbishop. A bishop named Santa Cruz has just obtained a criticism Sister Juana wrote about one of the Archbishop’s sermons, and publishes it against Sister Juana’s knowledge and permission. The Archbishop then visits Sister Juana to deliver an ultimatum: Sister Juana can either publicly renounce her life as a writer and scholar, or stand trial. As wonderful as all the feminism is, there is still this unholy trinity of the Archbishop, Bishop Santa Cruz, and Father Antonio that prevents Sister Juana from living her ideal life. This play makes the conscious effort to tell us that men exist, and men have power, and women can think powerful thoughts and be successful, but men will still have power. Now, before you stop reading, let me take a step back here. I am not using my tiny soapbox to rant about feminism. That would be a waste of space. What I’m saying is that too many people can get so wrapped up in whatever it is they’re fighting for that they miss the bigger picture. This play reminds us of the bigger picture. It is able to paint success and failure in the same stroke of a scene. We see misogyny and we see the utopia of feminism depicted by the Archbishop and the Convent. Neither is perfect. That’s what a good play does. It avoids types.

The only thing Sister Juana gets wrong, per se, in her speech is that in this instant, she thinks the Archbishop wants her to stop writing because as a man of the church he fears knowledge. He might fear knowledge. But more than that, the Archbishop is petrified of Sister Juana. Her power is a power the Archbishop makes her think she does not have, and this becomes her tragic demise—and poignantly, the content for a very dramatic ending. Sister Juana dies in the final scene. The question is left up to us: do we remember Sister Juana, or her words?

#playhousetuesdays #ericawachs