Theatre
The Truth Suspected
La verdad sospechosa
Juan Ruiz de Alarcón · 1623
Synopsis
Madrid. Don García leaves his studies at Salamanca, recalled by his father, don Beltrán, since the death of his elder brother. Hardly has he arrived when he begins to lie for no reason: he claims to have come back from the Indies, invents a feast given on the river, declares himself married. His servant Tristán follows him and worries. He falls in love with a young woman whose name he confuses with that of her friend, Lucrecia and Jacinta, and builds everything on this error; each lie calls for another.
Context
Written between 1618 and 1621, the play was performed at the palace on 1 October 1623 by the company of Fernán Sánchez de Vargas. It first appeared in 1630 in Zaragoza, attributed to Lope de Vega, in a collection of comedies by the “Phoenix of Spain”. In 1634 the author reissued it, revised, in the second part of his comedies printed in Barcelona, complaining in his notice to the reader that some of them had been “feathers of other crows”. It is under Lope's name that it crossed the borders.
Who it is for
Three acts in verse, with a plot that is easy to follow; the comedy can also be read as the model for a famous French play.
Prizes and reception
The most famous of its author's comedies; Corneille drew from it Le Menteur (1644), then La Suite du Menteur (1645).
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