Red Bull Theater Announces THE BEAST OF HUNGARY For 'Hispanic Golden Age Classics'

RED BULL THEATER has announced details of its latest exploration of Hispanic Golden Age Classics: the Revelation Reading of The Beast Of Hungary (El animal de Hungría, 1617) by Lope De Vega.

This Hispanic classic gets a new translation by the UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance. Hispanic Golden Age Classics is an initiative of Red Bull Theater and Diversifying the Classics | UCLA. This series is supported by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain and the Consulate General of Spain New York. This reading is produced in partnership with UCLA's Diversifying the Classics Initiative as a part of the 2024 LA Escena Festival.

This is a world premiere English translation of the classic play about a queen who is forced into the wilderness by her power-hungry sister. The fallen queen steals her niece and raises her as a feral girl, who then encounters human society for the first time when she grows up and falls in love. With its daring vision of female sexuality, and strong questioning of our ideas about civilization and its limits, this beast is a daring proto-feminist comedy. Lope De Vega's The Beast of Hungary takes the audience on a wild journey, from the forests of Hungary to the courts of kings. With humor and pathos, the play explores eternal questions about justice, loyalty, and what makes us “human”—in all our frailty and nobility. The extremes of the human heart are on display, from murderous jealousy to the first buddings of young love, making us question what truly separates man from beast.

The live in-person performance, at Sheen Center Shiner Theatre, will premiere on Tuesday September 17th at 7:30 PM. There will also be a simulcast livestream at that time. A recording will be available from Wednesday September 18th (7:30 PM ET) until Monday September 23rd at 11:59 PM ET. Open captions will be available from Thursday September 19th (7:30 PM). For tickets visit redbulltheater.com/the-beast-of-hungary.

Nadia Guevara directs a cast that features b (Off-Broadway: Toros - Second Stage Theater,  American (Tele)visions - New York Theatre Workshop; “WeCrashed” opposite Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto - Apple TV+; “Let The Right One In” – Showtime; “Witch Mountain” - Disney+), Shirine Babb (most recently seen on Broadway in A Beautiful Noise; other Broadway: The Piano Lesson, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Macbeth);  Jimonn Cole (black odyssey - Classic Stage Company; Our Lady of 121st Street, Iphigenia 2.0 - Signature Theatre; X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation - ; The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - New York Theatre Workshop/); Darryl Gene Daughtry, Jr. (Broadway: The Inheritance; Off-Broadway: Coriolanus - Public Theater/Delacorte); Jill Durso (Off -Broadway: Einstein -  The Theater at St. Clements); Zachary Fine (Broadway: China Doll with ; Off-Broadway: Arden of Faversham, Coriolanus - Red Bull Theater; Fashions For Men - Mint Theater); Santino Fontana (for Red Bull Theater: Your Own Thing; Tootsie — Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League nomination; Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella — Tony, Outer Critics Circle nominations;  Sons of the Prophet —Lortel Award; Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award nominations; The Importance of Being Earnest — Actors Equity/Clarence Derwent Award; Brighton Beach Memoirs — Drama Desk Award; I Can Get It for You Wholesale); Ismenia Mendes (Red Bull Theater's Mac Beth; Marys Seacole - LCT3; The Liar - CSC;  Cressida in Troilus & Cressida - NYSF;  “Orange Is the New Black”); Maria-Christina Oliveras (Broadway: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Amélie, Machinal; Zorba! - Encores!; Pretty Filthy - The Civilians; Here Lies Love, Romeo and Juliet - Public Theater); Sean Runnette (Off-Broadway debut!); Han Van Sciver (for Red Bull Theater: Kit Marlowe; Off-Broadway: An Oxford Man - Manhattan Theater Club,  At the Wedding - LCT3); and Chauncy Thomas (Off-Broadway: LaBute New Theater Festival - 59E59 Theater; To Kill a Mockingbird - Bay Street Theatre).

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 Artistic Director Jesse Berger elaborates: “Our investigation of Hispanic Golden Age classics has yielded wonderful results over the last few years – fantastic plays that have never before been heard in English, and which are now entering the canon for productions throughout our country and beyond. This year's play, The Beast of Hungary, is no exception. With an incredible plot, and this fantastic cast, it will blow your classical socks off.  Join us in person, or online from anywhere in the world!”

ABOUT Lope De Vega

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 a 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. , 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

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

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