Diving into classical texts and exploring what makes them tick, then reconfiguring the storytelling in ways that surprise and intrigue a contemporary audience, has appealed to me since the early 1990s, when I adapted John Gay's The Beggar's opera for a three-woman cast, narrowing the focus in order to make the already farcical social commentary as pointedly about gender roles as Gay's original was about class distinctions. Since then, I have created radical adaptations of The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, Cocteau's Orphée, The Threepenny Opera, and, most recently, a 1960s musical version of Tartuffe. So, when I was introduced to Spanish Golden Age theater a few years ago by being invited to direct Marta the Divine (Harley Erdman's translation/adaptation of Tirso de Molina's Marta la piadosa) at the University of Massachusetts for the 2009–10 season, my inclination to adapt for an audience of our own time and place was already a part of the way I look at creating a production. Tirso's plays in particular are deliciously rich in recontextualization possibilities—recontextualization not for its own sake but because sometimes it is necessary to shake up a classic text in order to reveal the larger story.

As I started to expand my understanding outward from Marta herself, I gradually realized that every character in the play is hypocritical or deceitful in some way, and that highlighting deceitfulness, behavioral masks, and role-playing would be crucial to my directorial approach. Felipe, the heartthrob of both Marta and lucía, not only disguises himself as a monk but convinces lucía that his love for her, rather than for Marta, is the reason for his disguise. The servants, Inés and pastrana, support the deceits of their masters (Marta and Felipe respectively), while also deceiving them when it suits them. Most of the characters in the play are malleable in their identities and fickle in their feelings of attraction and repulsion. The Ensign, for example, isn't sure whether he should pursue Marta or her sister.