“(Re)Framing Mary: Nahua Interpretations of The Virgin Mary in Post-Conquest Evangelist Theatre,” Theatre Annual, 70: 23-38, Proquest.

During the colonization and evangelization of native communities in the years after the Spanish conquest theatre played a significant role in the re-education of native populations towards an acceptance and adoption of Christianity.  The Spanish conquistadors frequently engaged the Nahua people in writing and performing biblical stories as well as plays with overtly religious themes.

Most of the surviving texts of Nahua theatre stand alone, however, Louise M. Burkhart’s English translations of the Spanish and Nahua versions of Holy Wednesday and Beacon of Our Sorrow demonstrate a clear comparison between the interpretations of both the Spanish and the Nahua.  Using these mirror texts to investigate the differences between the female characters in the two plays, this paper seeks to find the hidden feminist transcripts within the Nahua interpretation.  In addition this paper will probe other surviving Nahua plays from the post-conquest period for further evidence of this feminist subversion. 

Finally, this essay looks at the role of performance as at moment of transgression.  During this period in the Spain, women were not permitted onstage, and therefore, all portrayals of the Virgin Mary would have been performed by young men, however, Nahua women were permitted to perform onstage and frequently did inhabit the role of Mary.  How does this complicate our reading of the evangelizing texts, and in what way can it change the inherent meaning in them?  Does the embodiment of the Virgin Mary as a native woman change the native woman into a Christian, or does it change Mary into a Nahua?