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Running at the Department of Theater's Rand Theater in the Fine Arts Center from Feb. 14-23, Wild Thing introduces audiences to Gila, a fiercely transgressive protagonist who considers herself both a daughter and a man. At first, things are well: Gila is much admired and loved in the small village where she grew up. She's a great hunter, enjoys a good swordfight, and has a crush on Queen Isabel. 

Eventually, however, 17th century society demands feminity and marriage, and the men Gila encounters are willing to go to violent lengths to enforce  obedience—which is when the play shifts into overdrive to follow Gila as she exacts her revenge upon the world.

Wild Thing was translated by Professor Harley Erdman from Luis Vélez de Guevara’s La Serrana de la Vera. This compellingly theatrical production has been accepted to the Chamizal International “Siglo” Festival of Spanish Classical Theatre, to take place in El Paso, Texas in April 2019. It marks a triumphant return to the festival for UMass Theater, which presented Marta the Divine there eight years ago to considerable acclaim. Recently, actor and alumnus Jeffrey Donovan '91 donated in support of the performance the upcoming trip and performance of Wild Thing in El Paso.

Erdman is a nationally-recognized translator and adaptor of works by Spanish-language playwrights from the 1600s, finding plays that have never been performed in English, often with female characters who break expected gender norms, which brings us back to Gila. Past generations may not have used the same language to talk about members of the non-binary and trans community as we do today, but Gila elicited a shock of recognition among the non-binary actors who auditioned for the role. It is rare enough to see onstage a character who doesn't fit neatly into the gender categories in our society, they told Theater chair and Wild Thing director Gina Kaufmann, but to find such a character cutting a swath through the Spanish countryside in the late Renaissance was a revelation.

Wild Thing, seemingly centuries ahead of its time, challenges even modern ideas of gender that exist in today’s society and makes for riveting theater. Join us in the Rand this February.

Due to the themes and language in our production including references to sexual violence and a high body count, we recommend this show for audiences members over 14 years old.