“The Shy Courtier,” which ran last weekend at the ’92 Theater, was of a rare breed: its program featured recommended reading suggestions. After presenting their notes, which read like a CliffNotes version of the history of Spanish drama, Professor Michael Armstrong-Roche and director and translator Ben Sachs-Hamilton ’09 directed the reader to what sounded like an all-encompassing academic tome: Early Modern Spanish Drama.

For this reviewer, a history lesson on a Friday night was a bit intimidating. Add to this the fact that the translation itself is Sachs-Hamilton’s thesis, and it’s easy to see why I sat in the dark wondering whether I’d be able to keep up with what I was sure would be a dense language and a twisty plot.

I shouldn’t have worried. While the dense language and the twisty plot were definitely there (and the plot was occasionally quite confusing), Sachs-Hamilton and his actors brought the story and the wordplay vividly to life for the audience. It was impossible, while watching, to avoid comparisons to Shakespeare, if only because of the many mistaken identities and the suggestive wordplay, which were executed admirably by the entire cast (it only takes one actor speaking unconvincingly to ruin the whole effect of the language in these kinds of plays).

While the set and staging were effective, by far the most outstanding element of “The Shy Courtier” were the performances. Interestingly, in a play written by a man and dominated by male characters, the real stars were the women: Grace Petersen ’09 and Elissa Heller ’11, as the female leads, lent fire and presence to their quick-witted, intelligent characters, and Lila Becker ’12, as their lady-in-waiting, stole her quick scenes by perfectly delivering some of the best lines of the play. Sachs-Hamilton notes that “The Shy Courtier” is part of “a theatrical tradition in which women were prominent,” and this element of the show was evident in the actresses’ performances.

Not to be outdone, the men milked their roles for all of their comedic value as well. Gus Spelman ’11, as the shy courtier himself, completely owned the audience as he awkwardly wooed Petersen’s spitfire noblewoman; in one priceless scene, Spelman’s physical work alone provided most of the laughs. Kenny Feder ’12, as Heller’s endearing but sketchy suitor, managed to make the audience root for him despite the character’s slightly creepy behavior. Considering his demeanor, this was no mean feat.

The rest of the cast rounded out the show (Ameen Beydoun ’11 and Jisan Zaman ’12, as comic relief, played off each other particularly well, while Julian Silver ’11 scowled and glared suitably as the villain), but ultimately Sachs-Hamilton’s language emerged as the star of the night. It must have taken an enormous amount of work to translate not only the words of the original play, written in the 17th century by Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina, but also the meaning of the jokes and innuendos. My hat goes off to Sachs-Hamilton—not only are the puns and wordplay present in his translation, he also crafts some beautiful phrases about life and love.

Add all this up, and you’ve got one impressive show: it’s translated from Golden Age Spanish, it’s a three-act play condensed into two, it requires extreme verbal flexibility from its cast, and it still thoroughly entertains a modern audience.