The UNC Charlotte Department of Theatre will perform “Love the Doctor,” a comedic play by the Spanish Golden Age playwright Tirso de Molina starting Wednesday, Oct. 30.
This will be the first fully staged production of the 17th-century play to be performed in the United States in English. The work was translated and adapted by UNC Charlotte alumna Sarah Brew, in collaboration with Josephine Hardman.
Tirso de Molina (1579-1648) was the penname of Gabriel Téllez, who lived a dual life as a respected friar and a wildly popular playwright during the “Golden Age” of the Spanish Baroque, a period that produced writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Calderón. De Molina wrote more than 100 plays, including the original Don Juan play “El burlador de Sevilla,” which became the basis for a multitude of works, including Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” and Byron’s epic poem “Don Juan.” “Love the Doctor” (El amor médico) was written in 1620.
In the play, when the ambitious Jerónima falls for a mysterious man, she escapes the confines of her zealously guarded home in Spain to follow him to Portugal. There, she disguises herself as a man in order to practice medicine, an illegal profession for women at the time. Her aim was to infect the heart of the man she claims to love. When a seductive female patient falls for the cloaked "Doctor Barbosa," Jerónima finds herself tangled in a comic web of disguise and desire.
Brew, who earned a bachelor’s degree in English at UNC Charlotte in 2008, was a frequent participant in Department of Theater classes and productions. She received an MFA from the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts, where she collaborated with fellow graduate student Hardman to develop the translation/adaptation of “Love the Doctor” for her MFA thesis.
The piece was performed at UMass in a staged reading; the UNC Charlotte production is the work’s first fully staged performance. Lon Bumgarner will direct the production, which sets the comedy in Spain and Portugal, as in the original, but has moved the action to the early 20th century, during the height of the international women’s suffrage movement.
Brew and her UMass thesis advisor, Harley Erdman, as well as faculty from UNC Charlotte’s Spanish and theatre departments, will participate in an afternoon symposium Friday, Nov. 8.
“Love the Doctor” performances will be at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 30, through Saturday, Nov. 2, and Wednesday, Nov. 6, through Saturday, Nov. 9. Matinee performances will be at 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 3 and 10.
Tickets are $14 for general admission, $9 for seniors and $6 for all students and can be purchased at the Robinson Hall Box Office at 704-687-1849 or online. The play includes some adult content and is not recommended for children under the age of 13.