A man comes to visit his sister, whose husband has gone crazy. He keeps telling people he's not himself--he's the Other. He refuses to respond to his own name, Cosme, and keeps on insisting that he's not who he was, that he's this Other that everybody is tired of hearing about. So the brother talks to him, and he gets pulled into the Other's existential crisis to some extent, and then the Other takes him downstairs and shows him his own dead body...except it's not him, it's the other one, that is, his twin. But who is the murderer and who is the victim (or, as the characters like to put it in this play, who is Cain and who is Abel?) Is he this one (Cosme) or the other one (his brother Damián)?

Pretty soon both wives are interrogating the Other, trying to figure out if he's theirs or the other's. Laura, the woman whom both brothers loved and who chose to marry Cosme, asserts that the Other is hers and she wants him to acknowledge that he is Cosme. She's pregnant and since the child needs a father, the murderous Cain-brother must be her husband. Her character is more soft and gentle than the other woman, Damiana, who presents the Other with a very similar argument as to why he is hers and he should just admit that he's Damian. These two women repeat the struggle between the two brothers, one the conqueror of Laura and the other the vanquished Damian who left town and found his Damiana. Then the mother's suddenly lamenting the whole situation and talking about how God too has an other and the Other clarifies that God's other is Destiny, and his wife is Fate...and the women keep arguing over which one the Other is, and it starts to become unclear whether the one they want is theirs...or the other, the one they have not possessed. Of course, there's really only one way out for the Other, and he takes it in the end.

I read this play as I was re-reading Niebla because I wanted to experience another of Unamuno's philosophical games. In some ways I enjoyed this more than Niebla because the interactions between characters were entertaining (I especially enjoyed Laura and Damiana's back-and-forths) and I felt the emotions of the characters were more authentic and easier to access. I haven't related too well to Augusto Pérez the two times I've read Niebla, and both times I've been quite happy to see him meet his end after discussing his existence with the author. His existential crisis is fascinating and my brain loves the book, especially the way the characters are made to be re-created by each reader who reads it; unfortunately, my heart is not moved by Augusto's person, or perhaps I'm not capable of creating my own Augusto that I can come to love and appreciate. The Other, the man around whom this play revolves, is less developed than Augusto and maybe I just don't have enough time to grow tired of his who/what/why am I dilemma. It was nice to read this book side-by-side with another of Unamuno's works, because I started to get a better feel for the world as seen by don Miguel. I really appreciate the way he delves into questions of human and novelistic existence, even if he occasionally bores me. ( )