Theatre
The Bonds of Interest
Los intereses creados
Jacinto Benavente · 1907
Opening lines
Leandro
Gran ciudad ha de ser ésta, Crispín; en todo se advierte su señorío y riqueza.
This must be a great city, Crispín; its lordliness and wealth are evident in everything.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from es.wikisource.org
Synopsis
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, two penniless adventurers, Leandro and Crispín, arrive in an Italian city. The cunning Crispín decides that his companion will pass as a rich, generous and cultivated great lord, and himself as his valet. By bullying the innkeeper, he obtains the best rooms, then wins over a penniless poet and a captain by bringing them into the inn. Dame Sirena, an indebted widow, is for her part seeking to marry off Silvia, daughter of the wealthy Polichinelle; Leandro must seduce her in order to make his fortune.
Context
Premiered on 9 December 1907 at the Teatro Lara in Madrid, the play borrows its types from the Italian commedia of masks: Pulcinella, the gallant Leandro, Crispín in the role of Harlequin. In 1967, Dámaso Alonso found a precise source for it, Lope de Vega's El caballero de Illescas, in which a young debauchee passes himself off in Naples as a nobleman of high rank; Benavente splits this hero into two characters. A sequel appeared in 1916, La ciudad alegre y confiada, and the author himself made a film from it in 1919.
Who it is for
A comedy whose characters are borrowed from the commedia dell'arte, in a tone of farce mixed with romance.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece and, with La malquerida, as his best-known and most frequently performed play.