The Stage

The Heresy of Love

Published Thursday 9 February 2012 at 10:17 by Natasha Tripney

Helen Edmundson’s new play for the RSC is based on the life of Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz, a 17th century Mexican nun who was also a poet and playwright. Sister Juana had a questing, infinitely curious nature, a hunger for learning. For a while she was able to live an intellectual life, to read and write what she wished, but eventually she was forced to lay down her pen as her creativity was deemed antithetical to her vows, incompatible with her duty to God.

Catherine McCormack (Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz) and Geoffrey Beevers (Father Antonio) in The Heresy Of Love at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon Photo: Tristram Kenton

Sister Juana had her supporters, both in the church and the court, and Edmundson’s play is alert to the complexities of her situation, recognising that the convent - for a time at least - was not a cage, rather a space of her own where she was able to think, to study, to write, in the way few women could.

Catherine McCormack is a compelling central presence as Sister Juana, radiant in manner and rich of voice, a passionate, driven woman. There is strong support too from the ensemble cast, particularly from Raymond Coulthard, who is suitably oily and duplicitous as the bishop who, though initially drawn to Sister Juana, will later betray her. Stephen Boxer resists the urge to overplay as the strict Spanish archbishop who can barely bring himself to look on a woman for fear of contagion and Geoffrey Beevers brings warmth to the role of the kind yet easily swayed Father Antonio.

Nancy Meckler’s production is a little over emphatic in places, but as the play reaches its end and as everything Sister Juana holds dear is stripped from her, it’s hard not to be moved.