Who could imagine that in 2012 women would be under siege? It's a time to garner strength from powerful women, even if they hark from the 17th century.

Writer/actor Angeles Romero has done just that in her new one-woman show, Sor Juana & the Chambered Nautilus, based on the life of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a legendary Mexican 17th century poet and essayist, running at Talento Bilingue de Houston (TBH) Thursday through Sunday.

Sor Juana's reputation is so embedded in Mexican culture that she's even on the National Currency.

"She was a true genius of her time," muses Romero, who is also the director of programs at TBH. "She was like Mozart, in that she produced a tremendous body of work. Sor Juana had a drive to question, she was a constant thinker.

"With a mind like a playground, her mission was to know everything there was to know. She was a beautiful, tragic heroine."

In a humble convent cell, Sor Juana amassed the largest library in the Americas. Completely self-taught, she was given free reign to publish her work, thanks to Marquis de la Laguna, and his wife Maria Luisa, Countess de Paredes. "Maria could have been Sor Juana's lover as well, and that is touched on in the piece," Romero says. "There was no way not to."

The show covers what happened when there was a change at the church guard. "Carta atenagórica (Letter Worthy of Athena) was the essay that got her in trouble with the church," Romero says. "Sor Juana responded to the bishop of Puebla in March 1691 with her magnificent self-defense and defense of all women's right to knowledge, the Respuesta a sor Filotea de la Cruz (Reply to Sister Filotea of the Cross.)”

Getting Into the Role

Romero needed to breathe the same air as Sor Juana, so her research took her to Desierto de los Leones and Sor Juana's convent, the Order of St. Jerome, now called Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. "

As a performer, it's so important to feel the texture of things," she says. Some of the footage she shot at these locations is now part of the work. Sor Juana was her graduate thesis, so Romero has done some serious homework.

The performer didn't set out to do one-woman shows. "I never wanted to be alone on stage," Romero insists, "I imagined friends to play with. But there is something very portable about a one-woman show."

Last year, her meditation on Frida Kahlo, The Brow: The Life and Times of Frida, sold out. As an actor/performer she excels at taking in an iconic figure's life, and then translating it for the stage.

Raised amidst border culture in Brownsville, Romero graduated from the University of Texas, performed with Deborah Hay and Alien Nation, and completed a residency at Ohio State University.

Sor Juana is directed by Trish Ridgon, a freelance director and executive director of the Houston Cinema Arts Society. Romero and Rigdon crossed paths while collaborating for the 2011 Cinema Arts Festival.

Ridgon read Romero's play, and her masters thesis, sensing an immediate connection.

"I fell in love with the material," she says. "Sor Juana is my kind of woman. I also felt Angeles' passion for her subject. She's so well trained, and we share a similar vocabulary."

Their working relationship proved a rich collaboration. "I knew that I would learn a lot from Trish," Romero says. "Every rehearsal is a class. That's how delicious this process has been. Trish is an amazing teacher."

Two powerful women, Romero and Rigdon, coming together to celebrate the life of another free-thinking female feels about right in light of the current ongoing onslaught against women dominating the political conversation.

"I believe that when we have unintended consequences, we have to look at the unexamined assumptions that we take for truth. So, even though we know that women are equal to men, we assume they are not deep down," Romero explains. "What keeps me engaged with this character is my attempt to understand how someone so brilliant and outstandingly elegant could have been subjected to such brutal and humiliating behavior.

"I can’t wrap my head around it, yet it continues to happen, again and again. There must be an unexamined assumption that women deserve this. I genuinely don’t know the answer, this is why I write."

A sneak peek at Sor Juana & The Chambered Nautilus