The Liar is a farcical play by Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

 that was first performed in 1644. It was based on La Verdad Sospechosa by the Spanish-American playwright Juan Ruíz de Alarcón

Juan Ruiz de Alarcón

Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza , one of the greatest Novohispanic dramatists of the Golden Age, was born in New Spain .-Genealogy:...

, which was published in 1634.

Summary

Dorante, the eponymous quasi-villain of the play, meets two women in the Tuileries in Paris, whose names are Clarice and Lucrece. He impresses them with his claim to have returned recently from the wars in Germany and boasts of the vital role he played. After they leave, he decides to court Clarice, mistakenly thinking her name to be that of her friend, Lucrece.

Géronte, Dorante's father, announces to his son that he has found a girl for him to marry (Clarice). Dorante, wrongly believing that the girl that he likes is Lucrece, concocts an outrageous lie that he is already married in order to avoid having to marry Clarice.

After more fabulations and complications (Dorante revealing that his "wife" is pregnant), Géronte is infuriated to discover that he was lied to; Dorante eventually tells the truth and the plot is resolved happily.

Production history

The play was produced at the Old Vic

Old Vic

The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

 theater in 1989, in a translation by Ranjit Bolt

Ranjit Bolt

Ranjit Bolt OBE is a British playwright and translator. He was born in Manchester of Anglo-Indian parents and is the nephew of playwright and screen-writer Robert Bolt. His father is literary critic Sydney Bolt, author of several books including A preface to James Joyce, and his mother has...

. The production was directed by Jonathan Miller

Jonathan Miller

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...

. A reviewer for The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

described Bolt's version as "the best translation of a French play into English ever done."

A new translation and adaptation of the play by David Ives

David Ives

David Ives is a contemporary American playwright. A native of South Chicago, Ives attended a minor Catholic seminary and Northwestern University and, after some years' interval, Yale School of Drama, where he received an MFA in playwriting...

premiered at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. in Spring 2010, under the direction of Michael Kahn.