“Life is not a tragedy, no matter what you are told; let us embrace Comedy, the spice of life for all.”

Teatro Círculo presents the University of Puerto Rico’s Teatro Rodante Universitario’s production Amores, bobos y ladrones (Lovers, Fools, and Thieves) which was successfully presented in November 2026 at the University of Puerto Rico Theater as part of the 80th-anniversary celebration of the Teatro Rodante Universitario (University Traveling Theater).

This adaptation by José Luis Alonso de Santos brings together a collection of short, comic interludes and sketches by classical authors Lope de Rueda, Miguel de Cervantes, and Luis Quiñones de Benavente that transform everyday life into a game of romance, deception, and entanglement. Amidst roguish characters and zany situations, humor highlights the contradictions within our society and calls into question those customs that, in one way or another, still define us.

R.M. Juarbe, PhD, from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, writes: “Interludes and sketches are short, comic theatrical subgenres from the Spanish Golden Age, performed during the intermissions of a full-length play, for example, a comedy. A paso (sketch) is a very brief piece characterized by fast-paced action and colloquial language, devised by Lope de Rueda to “pass” the time between acts—is the direct precursor to the entremés (interlude). The entremés evolved and became more refined, gaining greater literary complexity and social commentary; it established itself as a distinct genre in the hands of authors such as Miguel de Cervantes, Luis Quiñones de Benavente, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

In the pasos and entremeses featured in Amores, bobos y ladrones (Loves, Fools, and Thieves), picaresque humor, social critique, music, dance, and movement converge. The play offers nods to our own historical moment and cultural landscape, including references to modern life and technology, while incorporating literary devices and motifs such as self-referentiality, intertextuality, and the grand theme of “life as theater”, the interplay between reality and fiction.

Everything returns, time and again, thanks to the magic of the theater and that delightful figure known as “Comedy”, the very spice of life, or, if not the spice itself, at least the element that makes life bearable and tolerable. Let us never stop laughing.”