The Story of Sor Juana

  I love plays, films, or books that tell the story of someone I've never heard about before and inspire me with displays of courage.  Last night my husband and I experienced a play at Northwestern University titled The Sins of Sor Juana.  The play brings to life an incredible women who was recently listed as one of the most influential writers in history - Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, from Mexico.  In the l7th century, Sor Juana displayed extraordinary intelligence though she was born to a poor family and was illegitimate.  Despite nearly impossible odds, she educated herself and then disguised herself as a boy to enter the university in Mexico City.  When she was just sixteen, Sor Juana was presented to the Viceroy, the colonial governor of Spain, and became a lady-in-waiting as she continued to write her poetry and plays.
      At the age of 19, Juana gave up her life at the court and joined a convent where she remained for the rest of her life.  History is not completely clear about her reasons for becoming a nun, so the writer of the play, Karen Zacarias, speculates about the possible details of the story.  Sor Juana believed that she was silenced because she was a woman, living in an era when women were not allowed to be highly educated nor published.  Yet today, schoolchildren throughout Spain and Latin America recite her poems by heart.
      There is nothing like live theatre - in just two hours time - to open us up to another place and time, to tell a story that moves us.  Sor Juana fought to create, to be heard, and to find her own voice.  Yet because she wrote a critical analysis of a sermon delivered by a Bishop, her voice was silenced and she completely stopped writing.  She died of the plague at the young age of 46.  The students of Northwestern performed this creative play with remarkable skill.  I am marked by the story they told, and grateful once again to have invested some time in a theatrical experience that tells me such a powerful story.