En otro reino extraño or, Lope de Vega and the Digital Stage

Abstract As a result of the global pandemic, in the spring of 2020 Madrid experienced a restrictive confinement for over three months. While theaters were forced to close, such measures did not put a stop to cultural initiatives in the city. From May through June, the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (CNTC) developed a pioneering audiovisual piece, En otro reino extraño, built around different texts about love by Lope de Vega (1562–1635). Carrying out this creative endeavor remotely, director David Boceta ushers actors and audience members into a state of disquieting liminality, a no man’s land straddling utopia and dystopia. The piece succeeds in fostering a communal and self-supportive dialogue around the meaning of love but, at the same time, leads performers and spectators to reassess our understanding of the classics when theater was plunged into survival mode.