A Lifetime Love of Language
By Stephen Chupaska
Published on 12/10/2004
New London — For her, everything is a story — even her name. Poet and playwright Resurreccion Espinosa is named after her grandmother, who was called Resurre by everyone except her brother. Having trouble with the pronunciation, he collapsed the r and the s into a ch and said Chure instead. Born in 1956 and raised in a village in the Andalusia region of Spain, Espinosa, who now lives in New London, also goes by Chure, but not to most people. They call her by her full first name, which combined with her last — Spanish for with thorns — sounds to English-speaking ears like a name of a character in a magical realist novel, something that Espinosa is well aware of. There is a lot of symbolism with my name, she said last week at the New London Public Library. In New London, where the air is thick with talk of revival and rebirth, Espinosas name and her work are at the same time symbolic and real. Arriving in the city in the early 1980s, she founded the bilingual program at New London High School. Soon after, she became involved in local theater, and what she calls the old Bank Street, when it had a region-wide reputation as a place for prostitution and sundry seedy behavior. In 1984,working with her future husband, she co-authored Hands, a series of monologues based on the true story of a local prostitute who was strangled. She decided to cast local Hispanics, many without any stage experience, in the play. It was community theater in that sense, Espinosa said. The people in the streets. Hands was the origin of Teatro Latino, the theater group that puts on several productions a year, performing Espinosas plays among others. I love the plays that she writes, said Penny Parsekian, executive director of New London Main Street. Shes incredibly dedicated. In 2001, Espinosa published Don Quijote in America, a collection of plays cum textbook for beginners in both English and Spanish language, and theater for that matter. Being a Spaniard, she gets asked a lot about Cervantes masterwork. Its a symbol of the country, she said. Espinosa said she returns to Don Quijote often, remarking on how good it is, especially how Cervantes skewers superficiality. The Spain of the 17th century isnt so far from here, she said. Espinosa is the author of Waking Dream, a collection of poems in English. Included is a poem dedicated to beat author Jack Kerouac, an early hero of hers, when she was studying English at the University of Granada. I have a soft spot for him, Espinosa said. (The Beats) were trying to expand the possibility of human life. She recounted a tale where she paid a visit to Kerouacs grave in Lowell, Mass., read a poem and encountered some old friends of his. Espinosa is also greatly influenced by the writings of St. John of The Cross, especially Dark Night of Soul. Its an important work, she said. Though she sees herself first as a poet, she sees the transition to writing plays as seamless. I think the best poets go into theater, Espinosa said, referencing Garcia Lorca, who was slain in the 1950s. Its a logical step. Poetry is in a way a very private language. Poets become isolated, but they need to communicate that world to others. Although Espinosa has both English and Spanish on her palette, she said the decision to write in a particular language is not always a conscious one. I dont choose the language, she said. For (Waking Dream) I wrote those in English because they belong to my experience and how I think now. I do not live in Spain; my life happens in English. She is working on a novel also in her adopted tongue. However, if she were to write about her family, it would have to be in Spanish. Espinosa grew up when Spain was still under the yoke of fascist dictator Francisco Franco, when many of the countrys artists and intellectuals were exiled, or like Lorca, murdered. But reach of the oppression also extended to daily life. People were afraid of expressing themselves, she said. Fascism does not allow the individual to grow. In the 1960s and 70s you could feel the sadness. Although Spains fascist era ended with the restoration of the monarchy in 1975, Espinosa said the country is still dealing with the repercussions. There is an element of the denial of progress, she said. Espinosa, who lives with her husband, composer Charles Frink, has been in New London for 22 years now, enough to see the changes in the city. Its great, she said. I love it.
