In 1998 I was fortunate enough to direct Agustín Moreto's El desdén con el desdén, in a world première translation/adaptation by Dakin Matthews entitled Spite for Spite. The play was produced by Writers’ Theatre, a company I founded in 1993 (and where I still serve as artistic director) on the North Shore of Chicago. Writers’ Theatre is dedicated to the word and the artist, deriving all inspiration from the written word and nurturing the process of the artist. I offer here a description of our rehearsal process in bringing Spite for Spite from the page to the stage. From a working theatrical practitioner's perspective I will take you through our journey and share some of the challenges we faced along the way in bringing a long-neglected classic to life again.

When approaching the plays of the Spanish Golden Age, we must remember that there are specific dramatic conventions and traditions peculiar to the era. The social mindset of the modern audience exists in a significantly different mental landscape than that of the average Spanish Golden Age ticket buyer. Dakin Matthews's vibrant adaptation of Moreto's text, while preserving the specifics and intents of the source material, must be regarded as a hybrid – archaic in its construct and foundation, but very contemporary in its styling. The adaptation/translation is deliciously scribed with an eye to contemporary American vernacular. Accordingly, we approached Matthews's script as a world première original.

When I first contacted Dakin prior to rehearsals I asked him if there were any conventions that I should be aware of. He replied “No! You’re about to invent them all. This has never been produced before.” It was at this point I realized that research into the milieu and traditions of Moreto's original, although important, would only get me so far, and that ultimately in rehearsal I would have to deal exclusively with the text at hand. If I became too bogged down in research, I risked staging a museum piece or a lecture, with no emotional relevance for the audience. The process of bringing this classic to fresh relevancy was mostly free of strife and drama because Spite for Spite is an extremely well-written and well-constructed play.