#1

Double Falsehood (or, The Distressed Lovers) is quite something. Apparently, it's lifted out of a bit in Don Quixote. The main bad guy, Enriquez, appears to have loved and, perhaps, raped (although rape doesn't appear to be all that much worse than consensual extra-marital nooky) girl #1, who subsequently rejects him. Prior to this rejection, however, he has rigged things such that his "best" "friend" Julio is called away to court, in order to have an opportunity to woo and marry his best friend's girl (girl #2). Ultimately, everyone runs away to a nearby mountainside dressed as shepherds, or to a nunnery (perhaps dressed as shepherds), or to an unspecified wilderness, all of which happily are in the same physical location. There is an absolutely hysterical bit wherein someone has the bright idea to smuggle Enriquez into the nunnery in a hearse for reasons unclear (girl #1 is not cloistered within--instead, she is running away from a lustful shepherd who has figured out she's a girl in sheep(herd)'s clothing), immediately after which, in one of those coincidences that requires one to open ones mouth and scream briefly to equalize the pressure, an empty hearse appears. All of this is explained by perhaps the lamest line-and-a-half of exposition since the trio scene in "Boadacious Ta-Tas" (of which I have no personal knowledge) (it is, however, a pretty noteworthy movie title). Everyone winds up in the nunnery, or not--it's a tad confusing--and Enriquez is unmasked as a philanderer. Somewhere in there, girl #1 appears, still dressed as a boy, having given the shepherd the slip, and announces that Enriquez has professed his love for her, and produces a letter he wrote before all these shenanigans as proof. No one notices that she's a girl/the girl/the missing daughter, which means that the lustful shepherd is either exquisitely attuned, or everyone else really is that dumb. Anyway, many are the yocks (well, maybe "two are the yocks" is more honest) as everyone attempts to process the apparent fact that Enriquez is also into little boys--you sort of get the sense that everyone is backing away from him, looking for a place to wash their hands. Somewhat mysteriously, this restores good fellowship all around, Enriquez decides on girl #1 after all (who accepts, mostly because her honor will be smirched unless she marries her rapist. This is how you know it's a comedy. If it were a tragedy, she'd kill herself), and all is forgiven and falls pat. The final speech of the duke, in which he gives his blessing for everyone to marry, is a masterful unintentional parodic (is that a word?) compression of the half-dozen or so similar speeches that end many of the other comedies. One gets the impression he is delivering it to the backs of the fleeing audience, trying to complete it before the last of them gets out the door.