Reimagining a Golden Age classic

Miracle Theater’s production of La Celestina opened last Friday to a sold-out house and an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the crowd.

The mood was festive and excited as the audience settled in to watch the poetic, romantic, often-hilarious but ultimately heartbreaking story of a young nobleman, Calisto, who falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family, Melibea.

When Melibea spurns the young man, he ill-advisedly turns to Celestina, the local procuress and former prostitute, to help him win the heart of the young woman. The enlistment of Celestina inspires a succession of misdeeds by many of the characters in the play and ultimately leads to tragedy.

Directed by Portland State alumna Christy Drogosch, the play is performed in Spanish with English subtitles and will be running through February at the theater in inner Southeast Portland.

The action in La Celestina is fast-paced and entertaining. For non-Spanish-speakers, the pace of the show can make it difficult at times to follow the subtitles, particularly in the first few scenes when the characters are being introduced and the plot is being established, but by about the middle of the first half one has a pretty clear understanding of the action.

Despite the language difference, audience members are better able to follow the action if they don’t rely on the subtitles.

“I don’t speak Spanish,” audience member Minerva Sanchez said, “but I really thought that the way that they acted it out was great. It really helped me to understand what was going on.”

The play is an adaptation of the classic, late-15th century Spanish novel of the same name, written by Fernando de Rojas. This production was adapted by Raquel Carrio and further modified for the stage by Drogosch.

Drogosch, who graduated from PSU with a triple bachelor’s degree in theater arts, Spanish, and arts and letters, is very familiar with the novel and its setting.

She was attracted to the idea of directing the play because of the challenges inherent within the piece. It can be very difficult to translate a piece that was written to be read, such as a novel, into a piece that is meant to be performed.

There was also the issue of the length: In a novel, much more time is spent laying out the story, while in a play the story must be told quickly.

“Obviously, we didn’t do the whole novel,” Drogosch said.

But the original translations that she received had taken the script down to 15 scenes and a prologue, which left nearly two-thirds of the story untold.

However, Drogosch was able to take some liberties with the script by creating movement pieces as well as introducing the character Trovador, who acts as the narrator of the story.

Trovador, played wonderfully by Carlos Alexis Cruz, is a cross between a jester and a Greek chorus. The character, who is not in the novel, has been a new experiment in the show.

Originally written to appear only at the beginning and end of the show, the role was rewritten to have him appear throughout, supporting the action and providing comic interludes.

Cruz clearly has a lot of fun with the role and admitted he improvises quite a bit. He acknowledged that for English speakers it can be challenging when an actor strays from the script, but having that kind of freedom to create in the moment keeps the show alive and interesting.

“I think this show is going to keep evolving, and what people see now is going to progress and be different,” he said.

Bibiana Lorenzo Johnston is outstanding as the anciently decrepit yet masterfully shrewd Celestina, while Nurys Herrera and Juan Antonio Martinez are hilariously naughty as the two servants whose greed and lust for one another is their ultimate downfall. They are well-suited for their roles as the young lovers Rafael Miguel and Siumara Samayoa, and are delightful to watch.

Ultimately, the beauty of La Celestina comes from the way in which it tells a story that is relevant to any time period. The issues that the characters in this play deal with—love, greed and honesty—are as true today as they were when Rojas wrote the original novel.

This production offers a wonderful look into the so-called Golden Age of classic Spanish literature, boldly realized and enlivened onstage.