Q&A with Barbara Fuchs

Q&A

Can you tell us more about your work translating, adapting, and staging Lope de Vega’s works? Why should more theatergoers and readers know his many plays? 

UCLA’s Diversifying the Classics project has been collectively translating Hispanic classical plays since 2014. Lope is the author we’ve translated most often, which makes sense, given that he was by far the best known playwright of his time. He was in such demand and wrote so many plays that we don’t even actually know how many—400? 800? 1200? He even wrote a manual on how to write plays like his!

His great insight was that theater needs to work for the audience, and for as broad an audience as possible. Lope is a master at mixing high and low, comedy and tragedy, and at making us feel for the characters. He is also very interested in women—and not just in romancing them! He writes with incredible sensitivity about what it’s like to be a woman in a sexist world, and how women can find ways around those constraints.

Can you share more about this adaptation of Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovejuna for younger audiences? How does this work appeal to children and families? 

When we started thinking about adapting Hispanic classical plays for young audiences, I decided to try Lope’s Fuente Ovejuna, which is perhaps his best-known play. Although the original is full of mature themes, it also has an indelible moral through-line, which kids recognize immediately in the adaptation. The original is funny and sweet and incredibly serious at the same time, and I’ve tried to render that in my version.

What are you hoping that audiences will take away from this performance?

My hope is that kids and adults alike will recognize the importance of standing up to injustice and finding solidarity in hard times. It is a balm to recognize what we can achieve when we work together for a better world.

Is there anything else that you’d like readers and audience members to know about you and/or this play?

I am grateful to all the friends and colleagues who read this and did all the funny voices! If you like the play, be on the lookout for the Spanish-language kids’ story and short play of Fuente Ovejuna for kids to put on, coming soon!