Films
Films
Papers for Superman - Written and directed by Jay Hubbard
Credit: Debt Collector/Voicemail #1
Written and Directed by Jay Hubbard, this moving and award winning short film portrays a father at odds with life when he rediscovers hope as he reads comic books with his young son.
RATED PG
Our New Gold International Theatre Festival
The following films were written and devised in the founding year of the Our New Gold International Theatre Festival, which utilizes theatre and film to translate Spanish Golden Age texts into pieces that address the social issues we face today. Fiona Hansen was a founding member and writer on the following three films in 2021, and served as the social media coordinator for the festival in 2022.
Una Historia en la Voz de Otros | A Story In the Voice of Others
Mencia’s story is based on the play El médico de su honra by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. This controversial honor-play deals with the ideas of fidelity and honor and prizes honor over life. The main character, Mencia, is falsely accused of infidelity but cannot protest her innocence because prior to being wedded to her husband, Don Gutierre, she was promised to another man named Enrique before her father bid her marry Don Gutierre. She is reunited with Enrique in a moment during which she finds him injured beside her house, and because of this a sequence of misunderstandings ensues that ends in her husband ordering her to be killed. He only learns of her innocence after her death.
This play was not originally received as a tragedy but as a warning with regards to wives’ behavior and only in contemporary terms has been interpreted as the tragedy that it is. This piece uses the narration of the men in her life collaged together to tell her story in English, using both the translation and the use of others’ dialogue to emphasize that her story is unheard. Her narration in Spanish that bookends this section is original writing expressing both her dilemma and her despair in her final moments. Her actual dialogue in the play does not appear.
Una Fabula | A Fable
Belisa’s monologue is derived from the play La traición en la amistad by Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor. This play is a woman-centric comedy dealing with fallings out in female friendships over love and love lost. Belisa is a secondary character who provides a level head during the chaos of the play, and her monologue from which this was adapted is delivered as a shrewd response to the chauvinistic rantings of the philanderous servant of one of the central characters’ suitors. Instead of using the monologue itself, this piece uses English original text written based on the monologue and tells this fabula to modern viewers. It frames the text as that of a YouTube personality (Camy Dodd) answering anonymous questions from “Nice Guys” on the internet to provide humor and social commentary to the piece.
La Transformación de Lisarda | Lisarda’s Transformation
Lisarda’s monologue is taken from the play El Muerto Disimulado by Ángela de Azevedo. Lisarda is a noble woman who believes that her brother has been brutally murdered. Unwilling to allow this to stand, she disguises herself as a man named Lisardo in order to call a hit on whomever murdered her brother. The monologue from which this piece was adapted has been largely unchanged from the source material, but it presented as dialogue in the original text and in this piece it is a monologue directed towards an invisible scene partner and narrated over the process of Lisarda’s cross dressing. This piece presents her as a corporate heiress undergoing a “transformation” in order to “become” her brother and avenge him. It also utilizes comic book effects for humor and to make the piece seem larger-than-life, complete with speech bubbles and interjections.