Queen Esther: A Heretical Play from Early Modern Spain

COMING TO UMASS AMHERST ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18

Tickets and more information available here.

In this Illuminated Lecture, UMass Professor Harley Erdman, with the support of five student actors, shares his research on a play from 1613 that landed its playwright, Felipe Godínez, in jail for heresy. What made the play so dangerous to the Inquisition? Erdman delves into the playwright’s crypto-Jewish background and shows how some extraordinary choices in the play might have held a hidden meaning for audience members who were of Jewish heritage but forbidden from practicing their religion or expressing their culture in public. Join us for an entertaining and memorable take on an academic lecture, on a fascinating subject.

This free event is a co-production of UMass Theater and theatre dybbuk, and is made possible in part by Comparative Literature, the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Spanish & Portuguese Studies at UMass.