A 15th century Spanish queen sees demonic forces at work all around her and prepares to expel the despised Jewish minority. Benito, a converted Christian, sees friends and relatives preparing to leave the only homeland they have ever known. He is desperate to prevent them being forced into exile. But would he do anything, no matter how terrible, to strike at the persecutors? Would he steal a child? The Spanish authorities certainly think so.
When prejudice poisons relations between communities, people grow fearful of their neighbours. They imagine unspeakable things, murderous thoughts and terrible cruelties being inflicted on a stolen child.
The Innocent is adapted from the controversial 16th century drama, 'El niño inocente de la Guardia, by Spain's greatest playwright Lope de Vega.
It is set in the late middle ages when stories of child sacrifice haunted the imagination of Christian Spain and its rulers, fueling a frantic persecution of Jews. This production examines the disturbed prejudices that informed the original play and asks now if we are as distant from that world as we would like to think.