"The Actor and the Emperor," by Lope de Vega, translated by Dakin Matthews

"The Actor and the Emperor," by Lope de Vega, translated by Dakin Matthews

Dakin Matthews brings Lope de Vega to the English-speaking audience with his translation of The Actor and the Emperor (Lo fingido verdadero, c. 1608), a story of the Roman martyr St. Genesius, who converts to Christianity while performing for the emperor Diocletian, and the repercussions that ensue.

DAKIN MATTHEWS is an accomplished and prolific actor, playwright, dramaturge, translator, teacher, director, emeritus English professor, and Shakespeare scholar. Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs is pleased to include his translations of Spanish drama in the UCLA Comedia in Translation and Performance series directed by Barbara Fuchs.

Matthews has been a leading actor in over 250 professional plays, and was most recently featured in To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway. He is a member of both the Motion Picture and the Television Academies.  He has appeared in over thirty feature films, TV movies, and miniseries, and made over three hundred appearances on television, performing as a regular or recurring character in ten different series. His scripts—adaptations, translations, originals—have been performed at Juilliard, the Goodman Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre, Lincoln Center Theater, American Conservatory Theatre, California Actors Theatre, The Antaeus Company, Andak Stage Company, and the Seattle, California, and Berkeley Shakespeare Festivals. 

He has taught at Juilliard, ACT in San Francisco, USD/Globe MFA Program, Cal State East Bay, the Actors Center in NY, and CalArts; he has directed at the Old Globe, the Denver Center, ACT, Trinity Rep, Juilliard, the Antaeus Company, Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and California Actors Theatre. He has dramaturged Shakespeare for the country’s leading directors, including Jack O’Brien, Dan Sullivan, Darko Tresnjak, Michael Sexton, and John Rando. His text, Shakespeare Spoken Here, has been adopted at San Francisco State, Cal State Hayward, U.C. Irvine, University of San Diego, and the American Conservatory Theatre. He has given workshops in Shakespearean verse-speaking around the country and the world.