The Swaggering Soldier

The plot unfolds around a trap thrown at a soldier from Ephesus (Pyrgopolynices), to recover a young courtesan (Philocomasium) that he had kidnapped from Athens, thus separating her from her lover, a young athenian (Pleusicles). The mind behind the trap belongs to, as it is usual in Plautus, the cunning slave Palaestrio, the true king of this comedy. The decoy is the soldier’s weaknesses: his bragging and tendency to trust flattery. With this typical character of his, Plautus satirizes a stereotype that will become common in literature and in our society: the arrogant individual, who hides his insecurities behind boasting, abuses the most vulnerable and whose speech is mostly based on the first person of the singular. In a happy ending, vices are punished, and people are spared: the soldier redeems himself and the lovers meet again. The play is inspired by a greek model – Alazon –, mentioned by Palaestrio in the prologue. This is one of Plautus’s oldest comedies, probably from 205 BC, when Rome, at the time in the final phase of the second war with Carthage, was consolidating its position as a power in the Mediterranean, even though it had not yet dominated Greece and the East, which would happen in the following decades.

Cast: Ana Carvalho, Catarina Pereira, Catarina Silva, Cátia Coelho, Daniela Pereira, Diogo Duarte, Eduardo Miguel, Gabriella Oliveira, João Cabral, José Luís Brandão, Rafael Almeida

Wardrobe: Daniela Pereira;

Sound: Guilherme Marques;

Lights: Carlos Jesus;

Choreographies: Lara Paz

Makeup: Cátia Coelho, Rita Baltazar, Nádia Sousa

Poster: Vítor Garcia