ABOUT THE PLAY

​Lope de Vega’s The Beast of Hungary (El animal de Hungría, 1617) takes the audience on a wild journey, from the forests of Hungary to the courts of kings. With humor and pathos, the play explores eternal questions about justice, loyalty, and what makes us “human”—in all our frailty and nobility. The extremes of the human heart are on display, from murderous jealousy to the first buddings of young love, making us question what truly separates man from beast. 

 

Written by the Spanish playwright deemed a “monster of nature” for his talent and artistic stature, The Beast of Hungary brings us into a world of dynastic struggle and familial strife. Shocking betrayals lead to two noble children being torn from the courtly world they were born into and instead raised in humble surroundings, putting nature vs. nurture to the test. Years later, the boy, Felipe, who has grown up as a simple villager’s son, meets Rosaura, a secret princess who has been living as a “beast” in the woods with her adoptive mother, Teodosia—truly her aunt and the former Queen of Hungary who is in hiding after being betrayed and deposed by her own scheming sister, Faustina. Rosaura is immediately confused but curious about a new creature called a “man” that she encounters, and also stirred by deeper feelings that she does not yet understand. Her unbridled desire for knowledge and new experience charms Felipe but troubles Teodosia, who fears that after all these years of isolation from human civilization, Rosaura is about to rush headlong into a dangerous world of court intrigue and deadly vengeance that she is unprepared for. 

 

The distinction between animals, humans, and monsters is constantly called into question in Lope’s play, as the audience is asked to weigh who, or what, is the real “Beast of Hungary”. Teodosia chooses the rustic life of a beast for herself and her adoptive daughter, transforming them both into forest-dwellers who live simply in a state of nature. For her, this is a matter of survival, after seeing the savagery of “civilization” firsthand. Rosaura, on the other hand, has never known anything but the wild. Consequently, she behaves in a guilelessly bold fashion, unfettered by notions of shame and propriety as she navigates new challenges. Her blunt honesty and direct expressions of desire comically clash with the expectations of “polite society”, but she soon proves to have greater moral clarity and reason than those around her. Faustina, meanwhile, is presented as unequivocally human, yet her base emotions lead her to act with the greatest savagery out of all the characters. She expertly manipulates rumor and patriarchal fears of female sexuality in order to fulfill her own ambitions for power and status. However, once she reaches the top, she finds that those same societal expectations weigh heavily on her, and is haunted by her past deeds. 

 

These three female characters take center stage as the twists and turns of the plot bring big philosophical questions to vibrant life, with plenty of romance, adventure, and intrigue along the way. ​

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ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562–1635) is a towering figure of the Spanish Golden Age, a theatrical innovator and prolific author in multiple genres. He is known as a master of the comedia—witty three-act plays popular across the globe-spanning Spanish empire during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He composed hundreds of plays, in addition to poetry and prose, earning him the name Fénix de los ingenios (“Phoenix of Wits”), as the expression es de Lope (“it’s by Lope”) became a shorthand for praising quality.

In his own time, Lope’s fame grew from his prodigious literary talent as well as his colorful biography, Born in Madrid to parents who had migrated to the capital from Spain’s northern regions, he saw in his youth the emergence of the urban outdoor corral theaters where
he would go on to make his name. Though he took religious orders in 1614, he continued romantic affairs throughout his life which often put him on the wrong side of the law, and left an unknown number of illegitimate children. Sor Marcela de San Félix, Lope’s daughter with the actress Micaela de Luján, went on to become a poet and playwright herself, one of many successful female authors of the period, including her fellow literary nun—Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Despite the varied scandals of his life, Lope was a truly successful commercial playwright, who earned income as well as fame through his literary efforts. Today he is best remembered for his work in the comedia form he came to define. After Calderón’s Life Is a
Dream, Lope’s Fuenteovejuna is perhaps the best-known comedia in the English-speaking world, and others such as Peribañez and The Dog in the Manger exemplify the well-constructed Lopean plot.

Miguel de Cervantes, his contemporary and rival, may not have meant it entirely as a compliment when he called Lope a “monster of nature” (monstruo de la naturaleza). Yet Lope’s prodigious output was fundamental to developing the theater of his age, and to our understanding of it today. The monster of nature left us many gifts.

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–Rhonda Sharrah

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