The Controversy, Richard Nelson's English-language version of the play La Controverse de Valladolid by Jean-Claude Carrière, will play at the Public Theater in the spring of 2005.
The drama takes place in a 15th-century Spanish monastery where the fate of millions of American natives from an ocean away hangs precariously in the balance. Will the Catholic Church decide these people are human beings with invaluable rights? Or will it treat them like slaves?
The Controversy joins a Public Theater season that already includes William Shakespeare's Richard III with Peter Dinklage, John Jeter's Dirty Tricks with Judith Ivey, Neil LaBute's This Is How It Goes and Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.