The Heresy of Love

by Helen Edmundson

Sister Juana writes dazzling plays, but her freedom of expression is threatened when a new archbishop arrives at her seventeenth-century convent. This epic play, first seen at the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a complex portrait of a nation and church in crisis and a unique look at the struggle for women's rights in a restrictive society.

Genres: Plays

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2012

About the author

Helen Edmundson is a British playwright and screenwriter. She has won awards and critical acclaim both for her original writing and for her adaptations of various literary classics for the stage and screen.

Edmundson was born in Liverpool, in 1964. Most of her childhood was spent on the Wirral and in Chester. She studied Drama at Manchester University.

Reviews

[Patrick Neylan]

This story of a playwright/poet nun in 17th Century Mexico comes across as curiously stilted, with the author (presumably deliberately) adopting the style of lengthy explanatory speeches and grand-standing soliloquies. Not a bad thing in itself, but one is left with curiously shallow characters. We accept their worldview because we know people really did behave that way, but don't really understand them at a human level (as with Edmundson's Coram Boy). In particular, Santa Cruz's transformation from hero to villain is abrupt and unsatisfying.

But it's still a good play, with short scenes keeping the action clipping along, which will work as long as you've got a good set designer for the quick scene changes. And even if the archbishop's constipated morality is only examined through the speculations of others, he's still a powerful presence. There are also strong female characters, not just the heroine Juana.

[Kylie]

This play is simply exceptional, and I will never be so grateful that I took a chance on a play with a hokey-sounding title and a rather dodgy description as the day I chose to watch this play.

[Bena Victoria Baricz Hughes]

This is honestly such a beautiful play.
It tells a story of a woman who has her voice silenced and unfortunately is forced to concede and give up her voice in the end. Although it could be interpreted that in her death she finally became free and her voice was finally heard.
I had only heard of Sister Juana in passing but this play, although some creative liberties were probably taken, really enlightened me to what the latter years of her life were like. It is a true shame that she is not spoken about more especially in the UK and Europe, from my experience anyway.

[Noah]

Very well written. Edmundson said she was interested in evoking the style of the period - I’m not as familiar with 17th century theatre in general but the style/structure felt very familiar to me as a Shakespeare fan. Monologues, disguises, deception - all very of the period. An excellent play, absolutely devastating, and still too relevant.

[Mary]

An enthralling tale of a forgotten woman - a nun who wrote plays and poems and created - and the narrow-minded men who pulled her down.