New adaptation of ‘Fuente Ovejuna’ will premiere at Wirtz

Northwestern Now: Summaries

[embedded content]EVANSTON, Ill. - A military commander ruthlessly exploits a rural community until the townspeople, led by the mayor’s daughter, rise up against him in Lope de Vega’s nonstop historical drama “Fuente Ovejuna.”The 17th century Spanish text is getting a fresh adaptation by Northwestern University School of Communication students Kori Alston ’18 and Susan E. Bowen MFA ’17.Northwestern’s Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts presents “Fuente Ovejuna” April 21 to 30 in the Ethel M. Barber Theater, located at 10 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston. Lope de Vega’s historical plays drew on popular legend and explored aspects of Spain’s national character and social solidarity on which the country’s greatness rested.Co-adapter Susan E. Bowen, who also directs, said she was attracted to the play’s fast-moving pace and moral complexity of its story. “Love is what moves the community to stand together and defend the values it considers most sacred, but its response to an ongoing abuse of power culminates in violence.“At a time when citizens on both the right and the left are questioning the systems of power at work in our own democracy, the questions the characters in “Fuente Ovejuna” are forced to confront have never felt more timely: ‘Am I going to step out of line and speak up, or am I going to be complicit in the status quo?’"In the midst of a dynastic power struggle for the crown of Castile, military commander Fernán Gómez returns victorious from battle to the small rural town of Fuente Ovejuna, where his acts of violence soon extend beyond the battlefield. The villagers repeatedly endure the commander’s violation of their honor, until one day he goes too far – kidnapping the mayor’s daughter, Laurencia, and her fiancé on their wedding day. After making a daring escape, Laurencia galvanizes the town to extract ...

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