The Malaga-based company Jóvenes Clásicos reimagines 'The Consent of the Girls' in the era of social networks

The classic script returns at the hands of young people from Malaga. 'El sí de las niñas' premieres at the Teatro Echegaray with the adaptation by ... director José Carlos Cuevas of Leandro Fernández de Moratín's great work. The academic revives the Spanish playwright's tragicomedy to question 21st-century female education with two special performances -Saturday and Sunday- during the first act of the 43rd Malaga Theatre Festival.

Consent, the silence imposed on victims, and the lack of assimilated empathy will combine in the reinterpretation of the Moratinian success, written by author María Beltrán, from the Malaga company Jóvenes Clásicos. The role of teenagers through the filter provided by social networks is the proposal Beltrán is working with. "It has the essence of Moratín, but it is a free and complex proposal," she adds as a critique of the "digital subjugation" that exposes women as "objectified."

The nineteenth-century classic, reconverted into a contemporary thriller, is staged this Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th in the first act of the Festival. The company's proposal aims to address current problems and their connection with the famous Doña Paquita, the young protagonist of Moratín's text. The evolution of the work describes parallels such as those established between imposed marriages in the 19th century and new forms of prostitution like sugar dating, an Anglicism that defines the exchange between older men with money and young profiles in return for the company they establish.

New Narratives

The desire to "modernize" the classics was born during Cuevas's acting stage at the National Classical Theatre Company (CNTC) between 2013 and 2017. Back in Malaga, he founded the production company Jóvenes Clásicos in the same year to destigmatize the peak works from "disenchanted" views of these. "The classics deal with universal themes, although time does not save many ideas," defends the academic, who focuses his interest on the commercial agreements on marriage proposed by Moratín's work.

The 70-minute duration of 'El sí de las niñas' offers a rereading of the neoclassical success to bring the text closer to the new audience, a hallmark of the Malaga company. Nevertheless, the proposal dialogues with the essence of the original script without rejecting the contemporary scenic proposal. "If we don't know our classics, we are doomed to repeat patterns," acknowledges the director in light of the current parallels with the work premiered in January 1806.

Parallels with Moratín

Actress Natalia Ruiz will embody a Doña Paquita renamed Rita, albeit more "tempered" in her manners, as the director maintains. Cuevas's idea contemplates the relationship between the entrance into the adult world of the original character with the risk of social networks at early ages, a thematic axis that marks the Malaga adaptation. Likewise, the age difference continues to adhere between the character of Don Diego –played by actor Juan Antonio Hidalgo– and young Rita as a parallel to the original work.

Author María Beltrán performs an exercise of awareness against the structures of a society that seems doomed to "failure." The challenge proposed for the theatrical scene involves delving into the multifaceted violences that women suffer such as trafficking and prostitution from a new prism. The evolution towards "wrong directions" is another of the dialogues that arise from the proposal. "When we evolve towards the same end as then, which is not marriage by interest, but it is the interest, then we are doomed to failure," she adds.

The adaptation considers the "universal conflict" of the young teenager, situated at the age where imposed duty and personal desire coexist. The protagonist faces an environment that conditions her, traps her, and pushes her towards tragic situations in a need for rebellion. The journey is directly linked to the darkest side of social networks, as Beltrán points out, highlighting the "impact" on "overwhelmed" youth by a digital world "without limits."

Malaga Territory

The Teatro Echegaray says "yes" to classic works and remains as Malaga territory of the Malaga Theatre Festival against the proposals of the Teatro Cervantes on a national scale. Two centuries later, the scenic proposal uses that contemporary mirror to show how the same mechanisms of control and manipulation adopt today different and effective forms. The renewed scene of 'El sí de las niñas' reaffirms that the classics are relics that dialogue with time, as Cuevas and Beltrán report.