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The Maternal Cloister
by Christine Roberts


"What interest have you, World, in persecuting me?
Wherein do I offend you, when all I want
Is to give beauty to my mind
And not my mind to beautiful things?"
The Maternal Cloister, a play based on the life of the Mexican nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648-1691), was written to be performed by puppets. It presents and celebrates Sor Juana's poetry and makes that poetry an integral part of the narrative. This inextricably connects the two, echoing Rosario Castellanos' observation in The Eternal Feminine that "she has a penchant for disguises". Writing the play for puppets added a creative dimension to one of the major themes concerning Sor Juana's life: manipulation. Who is manipulating whom? To what extent are women expected not so much to change or modify, but rather invent alternatives? There is a creative and thematic tension between the puppeteers and the puppets, between the dramatic form and the content, which permits an added symbolic dimension.

The play asks many questions about patriarchy, gender, and sexuality: How do we present and represent the female body in order to interrogate attitudes towards women, both on stage and in real-life? Additionally, how do we approach the iconic status of Sor Juana without losing the real woman?

Sor Juana has been labelled many things: lesbian; feminist; muse; goddess; heroine; manipulator; victim; artist. The Maternal Cloister shows how art can be used to disguise, exploit and illuminate.

The Maternal Cloister was performed as a rehearsed reading at I Encontro de Performance e Politica nas Americas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2000.

playwright: Christine Roberts
performers: Ruth Way, David Coslett & Roberta Mock
directors: Christine Roberts & Cariad Astles

This production was financially supported by the University of Plymouth.

The playtext can be read in Christine Roberts, Tormented Minds: Three Plays (Intellect Books, 2003).