BACKGROUND AND BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY

Spain in 1492 was the most powerful, fearsome kingdom in the world. Its empire and
Conquistador armies reached into Italy, France, Flanders, Portugal, North Africa, and with the
voyages of Columbus, to the New World in North America.

With the fall of the last Moorish stronghold of Granada in 1492, King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella instituted a paranoiac program of ethnic cleansing beginning with the Edict of
Expulsion of the Jews, followed by threats to the indigenous Moors, and under the infamous
Inquisition, an unrelenting persecution of Christians suspected of heresy.

Overnight hundreds, perhaps thousands of Granadians who had lived together in tolerance
and harmony, even friendship, for 700 years, were rounded up and burned at the stake in an
effort to enforce devotion to Catholic orthodoxy and ensure loyalty to the Spanish crown.
The stage play, 1492, is about four friends – a Christian nobleman, a Jew, a Muslim, and a
Christian converted from Judaism (Converso) – caught up in the horror of this time. Each in his
own way tries to cope with the rising hysteria, exhibiting courage and making moral choices in
the struggle against the terror.

At the beginning of the play, the Jew, Mosen, attempts to flee to North Africa and is
murdered by the secret police, Hermandad. Since he was not allowed to take his possessions
with him, his friend, Cavallero, a Jew converted to Christianity (a Converso), agrees to keep his
jewels for him. Cavallero is shortly arrested when the Hermandad find the jewels and accuse
him of being a false Catholic. A subsequent edict expels the Muslims, and Abdullah, a Muslim
is pursued. The Christian nobleman, Gaspar de Alzado, lends him his horse to escape, and when
Abdullah is apprehended and the horse identified, Gaspar, too, is arrested.

Gaspar has many powerful connections, including his cousin, Fernando de Bobadilla, who
has a personal friendship with Queen Isabella. Gaspar’s wife, Gracia, persuades Bobadilla to
intercede with the Queen on Gaspar’s behalf. Torquemada, the inquisitor, who is present at the
audience with the Queen, persuades her to not allow Gaspar to be freed.

Thus, with Mosen dead, and Cavallero, the Converso, in jail, together with the Muslim,
Abdullah, and the nobleman, Gaspar de Alzado, Torquemda attempts to force their
“confessions.” They are tortured (on stage), and brought to the stake to be burned. With the
flames licking around them, each not only refuses to “confess”, but insists, instead, upon their
innermost feelings and identities. The Jewish Converso, reverts to his Jewish identity and damns
the executioners in Hebrew; Abdullah, the Muslim, damns them in Arabic, and the nobleman,
Gaspar de Alzado, damns them in their own language (on stage, it will be English)

The damnations, as the men burn, are an indictment of Empire Building – with its inevitable sins
of pride, arrogance, unrestrained exercise of power, a clear metaphor for the chaos and horror of
today’s world. Gaspar’s final cries sum it all up: