The Pretender - Diversifying the Classics
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The Pretender, or A Man Beside Himself
A comedy by Juan Ruiz de Alarcón
Translated from the Spanish by the UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance:
Marta Albalá Pelegrín
Paul Fitzgibbon Cella
Barbara Fuchs
Rafael Jaime
Brenda Saraí Jaramillo
Rachel Kaufman
Robin Kello
Laura Muñoz
Javier Patiño Loira
Amanda Riggle
Kenneth Sánchez
Rhonda Sharrah
Cheché Silveyra
Aina Soley Mateu
Samantha Solis
Veronica Toro
Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2023
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Our translations are free to use for educational and performance purposes with attribution to Diversifying the Classics, under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

 

Credit: [Title of translation], translated by Diversifying the Classics from [Original title of play] by [Original author].

 

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The question posed by this play is as poignant today as it was 400 years ago: what actually makes us “us”, and what makes “them” something different? Can a man determined to test the fidelity of his beloved pass for another by simply changing his name? Set in the heyday of a global and multicultural Spanish Empire, Alarcón’s play explores how love and jealousy operate in a radically expanded world, where identity seems newly set adrift.