"A Wild Night in Toledo," by Lope de Vega, translated by Barbara Fuchs and the UCLA Working Group
One Wild Night...
Characters of all stripes come to mingle and make love from dusk to dawn in the Spanish city of Toledo, where roads and paths cross. Passion, trickery, and greed will not permit a wink this wild night, all in the name of love.
...But this is more than a humorous story about love and lovers. Although it’s set in Toledo, a city strongly associated with Spain’s Catholic traditi on and imperial power, the play places religion and politics in the background, allowing the Spanish people to take center stage. Here, the Spanish royals and Spain’s illustrious history are mentioned merely as matters of social convention, while the characters devote all their time and energy to what they really care about: intrigue, love, and sex.
Social class distinctions prove ephemeral, while it is as lovers that the players reveal themselves in earnest. Though they may be military men, aristocrats, and gentlemen, they share a common desire to experience love in one way or another. Lope’s characters stretch past their stereotypes and are exposed as human beings responding to basic instincts.
Barbara Fuchs and her Working Group at UCLA have brought an engaging and lively translation of Lope’s comedia "La noche toledana" to a new audience.
Series: UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies: the Comedia in Translation and Performance, #2
ISBN 978-1-58871-322-3 (PB)