Spite for Spite: El Desden con el Desden - Softcover

Moreto, Agustin; Matthews, Dakin

9781575250021: Spite for Spite: El Desden con el Desden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575250020 ISBN 13: 9781575250021

Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc, 1995

Spite for Spite is a new American translation, originally commissioned by the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, of the 17th century Spanish masterpiece El desden con el desden by Agustin Moreto, Calderon's most successful disciple. One of the most popular comedies in the classical Spanish repertoire, this witty battle of the sexes has been translated for the first time from the original Golden Age Castilian into clear and playable English verse, maintaining all the intricate rhyme schemes, elaborate wordplay, romantic poetry, and inspired foolery of the original.

When a man who finds himself irresistible falls for a woman who thinks herself immovable, the verbal and emotional fireworks fly, as he decides to woo her precisely by not wooing her, to fight fire with fire, or in this case, ice with ice - disdain with disdain, spite for spite.

With an introduction, bibliography, and full textual notes for actors and scholars by the translator, and original settings for the songs by composer Carl Smith.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Dakin Matthews is currently the Manager of the Antaeus Company at the Mark Taper Forum and a dramaturge for the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. For five years he was the Artistic Director of the Berkley Shakespeare Festival, and before that of the California Actors Theatre. He is an Emeritus Professor of English at California State University Hayward and has acted, taught, and directed in major theatres and training schools across the country. His scripts-adaptations, translations, originals-have been performed in many major regional theatres. Mr. Matthews has appeared in over 150 professional plays, thirty feature films, and over 100 television shows.

Review:

"What's astonishing is the bounding life Dakin Matthews has liberated here...." -- Robert Cornthwaite

A startling work that brings to us an inexplicably neglected Spanish classic. -- Lillian Garrett-Groag

A treasure. Executed with a scholar's thoroughness, a playwright's wit, and an actor's sense of spontaneous fun. -- Mark Harelik

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