• Overview
• Staging information
• Translations
• Sample translations
• Production history

Scene

It’s a three-act comedia and it has the highest number of redondillas of all Cervantes’ plays. Both of those facts support the notion that Cervantes was leaning toward the Lope’s popular comedia nueva style, but the play is certainly not a mere imitation or parody of Lopean comedy. For instance, the servants have more lines than the ‘upstairs’ characters in this play, and their stories are independent, not mere parallel storylines to support the main plot. Everyone in this play seems to be at the butt of the joke, not just the traditionally comic servant characters. There are six sonnets in this work, more than in any other of Cervantes’ plays, but one of the sonnets, by Torrente in the second act, keeps getting interrupted, and a couple of them are 17 lines instead of the standard 14.

Staging

Towards the end of the second act, Ocaña hides behind a tapestry (or a pillar); in any case a hiding place is necessary. While the other characters are talking about him the audience is able to see his toes wiggling from under the tapestry, acting with just his feet. Pilgrim costumes are required, something to make the two faux pilgrims look different when they come on in this disguise. There is a mock-fight in the central metatheatrical scene which may require stage combat. Music and dancing choreography are also very important; the characters react to the ‘dancing barber’ and his bristling moustache as though his talent is impressive indeed. Thus, even if the dancing is deliberately ‘bad’ or done as a parody, it still has to have an ‘impressive’ quality for the other characters.

Cast number

Minimum	Maximum
15 males	17 males
3 females	3 females
18 (total)	20 (total)

Characters

• OCAÑA, Lackey
• CRISTINA, Kitchen maid
• DON ANTONIO
• MARCELA, Antonio’s sister
• DON FRANCISCO
• CARDENIO
• TORRENTE, Servant
• MUÑOZ, Marcela’s squire
• DOROTEA
• DON AMBROSIO
• QUIÑONES, Page
• ANASTASIO
• MUSICIANS
• BARBER
• BAILIFF
• A ‘CORCHETE’
• DON GIL, A bastard (note he never appears or is mentioned, it’s a Cervantine ‘joke’)
• CLAVIJO
• A ‘CARRETERO’
• DON PEDRO OSORIO, Father of the other Marcela

Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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