Full Cast Announced for THE CAPULETS AND THE MONTAGUES (CASTELVINES Y MONTESES) at Red Bull Theater

RED BULL THEATER will kick off the 2022-'23 Season with Hispanic Golden Age Classics - Lope De Vega, beginning Thursday September 8th. Presented in collaboration with Diversifying the Classics | UCLA, this three-part series of events will focus on Lope De Vega and his play The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses). This series is supported by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain.

The centerpiece of this series is the New York premiere of a brand new English-language translation of Lope De Vega's play The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses) by Dakin Matthews, which will be presented online on Monday, September 12th at 7:30 PM EDT. Melia Bensussen directs a cast that features Anita Castillo-Halvorssen, Christian DeMarais, Carson Elrod, Topher Embrey, Alejandra Escalante, Jake Hart, Paco Lozano, Dakin Matthews, Junior Nyong'o, Cara Ricketts and Timothy D. Stickney. Following the September 12th premiere, a recording will be available through Sunday, September 18 at 11:59 PM EDT. Tickets are only $25.

The Hispanic Golden Age offers one of the most vibrant theatrical repertoires ever produced. At the same time that England saw the flourishing of Shakespeare on the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage and in the decades that followed, Spanish-speaking playwrights including Lope De Vega, Tirso de Molina, Ana Caro, Sor Juana, and Calderón de la Barca flourished on the continent and in the New World. Many of the works created during this time have still not been translated into English.

Red Bull Theater is committed to expanding its repertoire by seeking out and sharing lesser-known texts that stand the test of time. The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses) - by one of the Hispanic Golden Age's most accomplished playwrights - is just such a play.

Artistic Director Jesse Berger elaborates: "All of us at Red Bull are excited to continue our exploration of the rich material from the Hispanic Golden Age, to further our collaboration with our partners at UCLA's Diversifying the Classics supporting their efforts to expand the canon of classical plays from a variety of cultures and promote their wider production across the field. And, it's also a pleasure to continue to work with some of the same great artists who have led our previous readings of these plays: the terrific director Melia Bensussen, fabulous actors like Carson Elrod, Junior Nyong'o, Cara Ricketts, and many more, all in a wonderful new translation by Dakin Matthews. We hope this endeavor uncovers the timeless theatrical playability of Lope De Vega's play and provides a point of entry into the broader classical canon of plays produced in theaters throughout our country and beyond."

Rhonda Sharrah of Diversifying the Classics writes: "Lope De Vega wrote his witty take on the feuding families around the same time as Shakespeare's version was appearing on English stages, but the two masters probably did not know each other's plays. Instead, they were working from a shared font of popular tales and legends that circulated throughout Europe during the sixteenth century, inspiring many of Shakespeare's English contemporaries as well as the prolific Spanish comedia playwrights."

It's the star-crossed lovers as you've never seen them before! Lope De Vega's The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses) takes the iconic story of young love threatened by old familial hates in surprising directions, and Dakin Matthews's rhyming verse translation brings the Spanish classic back to sparkling life on stage.

ABOUT THE EVENTS

ONLINE DISCUSSION: Lope De Vega & Shakespeare

Thursday, September 8, 2022 | 7:30 PM EDT

FREE!

Who is Lope De Vega and why did he and Shakespeare both write a play about the Capulets and the Montagues? An interactive discussion examining Hispanic Golden Age master playwright Lope De Vega and his English contemporary William Shakespeare with translator Dakin Matthews, and scholars Barbara Fuchs, and Rhonda Sharrah.

ONLINE READING | The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses)

by Lope De Vega in a new rhyming verse translation by Dakin Matthews, directed by Melia Bensussen

Premieres Monday, September 12th at 7:30 PM EDT. A recording will be available thru Sunday, September 18 at 11:59 PM EDT.

Tickets are $25

Featuring Anita Castillo-Halvorssen, Christian DeMarais, Carson Elrod, Topher Embrey, Alejandra Escalante, Jake Hart, Paco Lozano, Dakin Matthews, Junior Nyong'o, Cara Ricketts and Timothy D. Stickney

ONLINE BULL SESSION | The Montagues and the Capulets (Castelvines y Monteses)

Thursday, September 15th at 7:30 PM EDT

A FREE interactive discussion of the play and its themes with members of the creative teams.

ABOUT THE PLAY

The star-crossed lovers as you've never seen them before! Lope De Vega's The Capulets and the Montagues (Castelvines y Monteses) takes the iconic story of young love threatened by old familial hates in surprising directions, and Dakin Matthews' rhyming verse translation brings the Spanish classic back to sparkling life on stage. Lope De Vega wrote his witty take on the feuding families around the same time as Shakespeare's version was appearing on English stages, but the two masters probably did not know each other's plays. Instead, they were working from a shared font of popular tales and legends that circulated throughout Europe during the sixteenth century, inspiring many of Shakespeare's English contemporaries as well as the prolific Spanish comedia playwrights. Matteo Bandello's Novelle-a story collection that was translated into many languages-contains a well-known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale, but Lope freely adapts his source to fit the strengths of the comedia form that he was helping become popular in his native Spain. One of Lope's main innovations was the more tragicomic tone, which masterfully mixes humor and pathos to deliver modern entertainment unbound by classical rules of drama. Lope advocated for this free approach in his treatise on playmaking, New Art of Making Plays in Our Time (Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo). He was writing this "essay in verse" around the same time as Castelvines y Monteses, and the play exemplifies much of what he argues playwrights should prioritize in their work for modern audiences. His most important point was, in fact, that audience pleasure must be the guiding light for new plays, even if they did not strictly conform to Aristotle's unities or other purely theoretical principles. Accordingly, he expands the course of the love affair between Romeo and Juliet from a few days to several months, deepening the relationship beyond just the first rush of meeting and falling in love at first sight. The lovers are also much more mature than their Shakespearean counterparts, particularly Juliet who gets much more opportunity to shine here. This comes as no surprise in a Spanish play of this time, due to a major difference between Spanish and English stages: in Spain, women were allowed to act and were often the stars of the show (as well as playwrights and producers in their own right). Lope notes the popularity of the "cross-dressing" plot in New Art and its attendant opportunity to see women displaying their legs in fetching stockings. As Spanish playwrights wrote for female actresses, the plays give them central roles, and Lope's Juliet is no exception. She takes the lead in the romance from the beginning and is the mastermind behind several schemes to bring it to fruition.

Dakin Matthews's translation, now published by Diversifying the Classics, captures the witty banter and soaring emotions of Lope's play through the use of rhyming verse. Lope and other comedia writers used a wide variety of verse forms in the original Spanish, and Matthews has dazzlingly turned much less cooperative English rhymes into a fresh and lively version of the classic story that will delight audiences. The Capulets and the Montagues shows the remarkable creativity of the early modern period and the border- and language-crossing power of theater through the ages.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) is a towering figure of the Spanish Golden Age, a theatrical innovator and prolific author in multiple genres. He is known as a master of the comedia-witty three-act plays popular across the globe-spanning Spanish empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He composed hundreds of plays, in addition to poetry and prose, earning him the name Fénix de los ingenios ("Phoenix of Wits"), as the expression es de Lope ("it's by Lope") became shorthand for praising quality. In his own time, Lope's fame grew from his prodigious literary talent as well as his colorful biography, Born in Madrid to parents who had migrated to the capital from Spain's northern regions, he saw in his youth the emergence of the urban outdoor corral theaters where he would go on to make his name. Though he took religious orders in 1614, he continued romantic affairs throughout his life which often put him on the wrong side of the law, and left an unknown number of illegitimate children. Sor Marcela de San Félix, Lope's daughter with the actress Micaela de Luján, went on to become a poet and playwright herself, one of many successful female authors of the period, including her fellow literary nun-Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Despite the varied scandals of his life, Lope was a truly successful commercial playwright, who earned income as well as fame through his literary efforts. Today he is best remembered for his work in the comedia form he came to define. After Calderón's Life Is a Dream, Lope's Fuenteovejuna is perhaps the best-known comedia in the English-speaking world, and others such as Peribañez and The Dog in the Manger exemplify the well-constructed Lopean plot. Miguel de Cervantes, his contemporary and rival, may not have meant it entirely as a compliment when he called Lope a "monster of nature" (monstruo de la naturaleza). Yet Lope's prodigious output was fundamental to developing the theater of his age, and to our understanding of it today. The monster of nature left us many gifts.

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ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Dakin Matthews has translated eleven Golden Age plays into rhyming verse, five of which are currently published by LinguaText in critical editions, with the remaining six scheduled to come out soon. He has won five Walker Reid awards for these translations from the Association for Hispanic Classical Theatre, and a 2011 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for The Capulets and the Montagues. His original verse play, The Prince of L.A, also won the 2005 Ted Schmitt Award for Best New Play from the LADCC. His Henry IV adaptation of two Shakespeare history plays won a special Drama Desk Award for its Lincoln Center Theater 2004 production. His ten-minute play Her Father's Daughter was a winner in the Red Bull Shorts Festival of 2016. He has translated twenty plays in all and written eighteen full-length plays of his own, including a simultaneous trilogy about the Essex Rebellion, a seven-play history cycle about the nineteenth-century papacy, and one musical (with B. T. Ryback). He has published scholarly articles on Shakespeare and on Spanish theatre, as well as a widely used textbook on Shakespeare's verse called Shakespeare Spoken Here. He is also a busy actor on stage and screen, with over 30 films, 300 TV appearances, and 250 stage plays, including eight on Broadway. He is a Professor Emeritus of English from Cal State, East Bay, and a former Juilliard Drama instructor.

ABOUT DIVERSIFYING THE CLASSICS

Diversifying the Classics promotes the vibrant, Spanish-language theatrical tradition developed on both sides of the Atlantic by playwrights such as Spaniards Lope De Vega and Calderón de la Barca, or Mexicans Ruiz de Alarcón and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The project seeks to foster awareness and appreciation of Hispanic classical theater in Los Angeles and beyond, expanding the canon to include the heritage of US Latino communities. While our work is based in Los Angeles, we hope to reach theater professionals and audiences across the US, offering them the materials and tools to explore the rich tradition of the comedia. The comedias of the Hispanic Golden Age are plays for the people; performances took place in open-air theaters, where attendees of all classes and both sexes commingled. At the same time the works are sophisticated urban dramas, offering pointed reflections on the constructed nature of class and gender as well as the performativity of social roles in the burgeoning city, issues that resonate with audiences today.

ABOUT RED BULL THEATER

RED BULL THEATER, hailed as "the city's gutsiest classical theater" by Time Out New York, brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years."

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: RemarkaBULL Podversations, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.

"The classics-shaking Red Bull Theater," as Time Out NY has called it, has presented 20 Off-Broadway productions and nearly 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.

For more information about the Hispanic Golden Age Classics, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

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