Mystical Ecstacy 

AURIC 

An accessible performance paying homage to the female writer of the Spanish Golden Age. 

(2024) Created and performed by Paula Rodríguez. Music by Arthur Astier. Featured at Bush Theatre, FesteLon Festival, Brighton Fringe, Cervantes Theatre (London), International Festival of Classical Theatre in Almagro, Clásicos en Alcalá, Jornadas de Teatro Clásico (Málaga), exlimite (Madrid), Noche de Juglares (Zaragoza), and more.

Text Fragment

In those golden centuries,

women wrote 

in a world that wouldn't embrace them.

A world that understated them.

Being an author and a woman, 

was a rupture, a challenge, a prayer.

Female poets, playwrights, novelists,

Many of them took their vows, perhaps, to escape the marital yoke

and fulfil their true calling, writing.

Not all restricted themselves to piety,

they spoke of human passions, 

risking severe punishment.

Today, we can only glimpse at their lives,

every verse they wrote

is a witness to their struggle,

is a relic that speaks to us,

is a victory.

Teaser 1.30 mins 

Rosaura

Life is a Dream retold through its female protagonist perspective.

(2017 -2019). Based on Life is a Dream by Calderón de la Barca. By Paula Rodríguez and Sandra Arpa. Production by Teatro Inverso. Featured at Corral de Comedias de Alcalá, International Festival of Almagro, Festival de Olite, Festival FesteLon, Women War (London), University of Canterbury (Kent), University of Delaware (Ohio), international tour.

Text Fragment

“Woman I want to be, to my shame – for a woman I am not, nor man: I am a Beast, I am a shadow, I am rage. A third costume seen in the regalia of war, that tightens my heart. Rain, rain, rain, from the well of your tears, mother, mother of the dawn, mother of the soul. How alone and empty I feel, such a monster, such anger, such pain. Now my fist clenches, now my heart trembles, now my life unravels. A monster with three heads, this is the image of Rosaura. All see her, see her and touch her; for the circus of War approaches ..."  

Trailer 2.13 mins 

Wonders

Cervantes' Wonder vs the virtual era 

(2019 -2021) Based on texts by Cervantes. Created and performed by Paula Rodríguez and Sandra Arpa and featured at Exlimite (Madrid), Festival Tercera Semana (Valencia), and more.

Text Fragment

She shares the room of the soul and of the mind 

with the divine and moral philosophy.


She paints the day in the middle of night,


where the darkness seems the brightest honesty 

and transforms daylight into silent dusk.


The flow of the floods she takes to ecstasy,


she rules among the streams- and waterfalls,


she reduces wild fury to gentleness


and reconciles opponents, without laws. 

She gives and takes the weapon and caresses, 

she opens all the secrets, but to close them, 

in her, there are no limits no defence.

Teaser 0.30 mins 

Medival Ballads: Shadow of Myself

(2019) Delaware Ohio Production

An interdisciplinary student show which modernises medieval Spanish romances through original music adapted narration, and puppetry. Funded by Hispanic Theatre Internship, supervised and produced by Prof. Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas from Ohio Wesleyan University.