The Jew

The difficulties endured by Brazilian/Portuguese playwright Antonio Jose da Silva in the early 18th century are the focus of this period drama. After emigrating to Portugal from Brazil, he enjoyed a brilliant career and married into nobility. However, though he was a practicing Catholic, he was of Jewish descent. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions never accepted that anyone whose ancestors were forcefully converted to Christianity could possibly be a "genuine" Christian, and they periodically persecuted these "conversos.”