Enclosed within 59E59 Theaters is Theater B, unpretentious and intimate in design.  Walking in you find foreign writings across the wall, an intricate device flowing on a mildly moving set.  Less than a hundred were there between Madison and Park Avenue to witness a history come alive.  We were all subjected to a magnificent true story behind a 1486 Spanish Inquisition file, which was almost stolen from the Spanish National Archives.  The interrogation of the detained Israeli professor opens up the forbidden desires awakened by the binding of eyes, the tragic love between a Spanish Priest, Andrés González, and his Jewish  wife, Isabel.  Andres’s confession of a double life reveals a testing of his conviction amid overwhelming intolerance and persecution.

The cast of Conviction is comprised of three actors, Ami Dayan (Professor Tal,  Andrés González), Kevin Hart  (Director of The National Archives in Spain, Juan de Salamanca), and Catharine Pilafas (Isabel).  Dayan’s and Pilafas’s approach to the ill-fated story was simply extraordinary, as if they held no memory at all of the previous night’s performance.  The “sinful” lust looming over their heads escalated in gravidity as Andres recalled to Juan de Salamanca, a longtime friend and priest, a whirlwind romance of the ages.  The consequences documented in a file among others.  Other fatal stories.

Hart’s performance as a interrogator proved to be my personal favorite because he provided another perspective to Conviction.  He was the only one without a link to the century’s old story, just like the audience.  I had no knowledge about what we were to see in the intricate historical account.  Does this mean that not being well informed about the Spanish Inquisition takes away from your views of Conviction?  In my opinion, no.  I felt alien to the speech and content in the beginning, although I had some idea of the show’s nature.  However, over the course of the play I grew to understand every aspect of it through marvelous acting and striking emotion.  I would recommend Conviction to all enamoured with forbidden love — and to those who wouldn’t mind a little history lesson, too.

Conviction, directed by Jeremy Cole, is running from February 16 to March 21 at 59E59 Theaters.  High $5 Tickets are available through March 14  here!