La casa de empeños

by Christian Nájera Jiménez

About the play

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — the famous Mexican nun, philosopher, and author — wove an intricate plot of love and deception in Los empeños de una casa, which became her best-known play. Here it is newly transformed into a baroque sitcom about adapting and adjusting. 

On Leonor’s first day working at a pawn shop, she comes across an intriguing book: a used copy of Sor Juana’s Los empeños de una casa. As Leonor reads the 17th-century romantic-comedy-of-errors, she soon discovers that the play mirrors the lives of the workers at the shop in surprising and revealing ways.

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La casa de empeños will be in Spanish, with English translations provided. 

* This performance is part of the “New Dramaturgies of Classical Hispanic Theater” Residency/Laboratory and the Mex-Clásicos initiative, co-organized by Diversifying the Classics at UCLA and the Cultural Outreach Coordination Office of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), via the UNAM Theater Department, the International University Theater Festival (FITU), and the School of Philosophy and Letters.

This play is the winning project in the Theater category of the “Estímulos” call for proposals under the “Impulso a creadores 2025” program of the Cultural Institute of León.

In addition, this project has been selected for the 54th International Cervantino Festival (FIC) and the 46th National Theater Showcase (MNT).