This play by Lope de Vega, which was unknown until the recent discovery of a manuscript copy at the Biblioteca Nacional de España and its staging with the support of Fundación Siglo de Oro, is an urban comedy written around 1613–14, a period of full creative maturity when the writer, known as the ‘Phoenix of Wits’, was at his height of success. During those years he wrote plays such as La dama boba (trans. A Woman of Little Sense) and El perro del hortelano (trans. The Dog in the Manger), masterpieces of comedy. These are now joined by the recently found Mujeres y criados (Women and servants), in which Lope provides a delightful tangle of deceit where women have the dominant voice and the more traditional perceptions of honour are distorted.
Mujeres y criados has the freshness, humour and wit of Lope’s best plays. It features a bit of everything: intrigue, love triangles, witty dialogue, amusing servants, a fast pace… peppered with characters who are at ease in the streets and countryside of Madrid and in the domestic spaces where the most significant events of the plot unfold.
The discovery and staging of this text for contemporary audiences therefore marks a contribution to the knowledge and dissemination of the work of Lope de Vega and the heritage of Spanish classical theatre.
