If you go to GALA Hispanic Theatre to see Lope de Vega’s “El Caballero de Olmedo” (“The Knight from Olmedo”), you may think you’ve stumbled into the wrong theater. “El Caballero,” a stirring drama of love, honor and valor from Spain’s Golden Age, conjures up images of elaborate rooms, painted ceilings, the highly embellished arts that were celebrated in Spain during the 17th century.
Yet a glimpse of Jose Luis Raymond’s clean, spare set for “El Caballero” makes it clear that this is not a conventional production of a play written around 1620. At the back of the stage are floor-to-ceiling, wide, slatted wooden structures that function as ladders. Between two of the ladders is a moveable metal structure that serves as a window, a balcony, a garden gate. On the floor of stage, a red wooden platform is surrounded by sand.
Under the sure direction of Jose Luis Arellano Garcia, this muscular co-production with Spain’s Accion Sur moves swiftly, mixing comedy and tragedy to achieve a nuanced drama in which the hero — a man of honor — learns that the world is not an honorable place.
That hero, Don Alonso (the engaging Juan Caballero), is a knight from Olmedo. As the play begins, he announces that he has fallen in love with a woman he has seen the morning before, Dona Ines from Medina del Campo.
Alonso’s servant, Don Tello (Pedro Martin), encourages his master’s intoxication and enlists the help of a local busybody, Fabia (Monalisa Arias), to help Alonso communicate his love. Caballero is powerful as the young man crazy for love. Martín and Arias smoothly create a team to help him get what he desires.
Dona Ines (Emme Bonilla) is equally thrilled by the handsome stranger and confides in her sister, Dona Leonor (Karen Morales-Chacana), how alive he makes her feel. In addition to playing their individual roles with charm, Bonilla and Morales-Chacana make credible their close bond as sisters.
Unfortunately, Dona Ines has a suitor, the mean-spirited Don Rodrigo (Jerry Nelson Soto), who has already been accepted into the family by Ines’ father, Don Pedro (Mel Rocher). Rodrigo and his friend Don Fernando (Oscar Ceville) do everything possible to destroy the love between Ines and Alonso.
When Alonso saves Rodrigo’s life at a bullfight, Alonso is sure that — according to the rules of courtly etiquette — Rodrigo will be grateful and allow Ines to marry him. Instead, the jealous Rodrigo and his henchmen attack Alonso in the middle of the night on the road from Medina to Olmedo and kill him.
Throughout this “Knight from Olmedo,” all the elements are infused with energy and intensity. The adaptation, by Mar Zubieta and Francisco Rojas, retains de Vega’s extraordinary lyrical poetry while making the complex story straightforward and understandable.
Ikerne Gimenez’s blue/gray/black costumes are soft and suggestive of earlier times without being strictly defined period costumes. Martha Mountain’s lighting design deals in subtle shadows and gentle contrasts of tone.
The music, composed and selected by David Peralto, draws on some of the most accomplished musicians of the Spanish Renaissance. During Act I, it is performed just offstage by Kevin Payne on the 15th-century ancestor of the guitar, the vihuela. In Act II, Payne is joined by Arias and Sebastian Delta playing recorders and drum. The music is graceful and adds a note of authenticity.
It’s rare to see a good production of de Vega on our modern stages. It is extraordinary to find such an integral and passionate production, which graphically captures the spirit of de Vega’s 17th-century aesthetic while speaking clearly to our 21st-century understanding.
