The comedy deals with which type of education is better: a strict and rigid one, or a more liberal and open one. Both models of education are embodied by the characters of Demesa and Micciona, two sisters with very different temperaments: while the former is a very strict mother, worried about her two sons, Aeschinus and Ctesiphon, the latter is a jovial and permissive spinster who has adopted one of her nephews, specifically Aeschinus.
Aeschinus, the young man educated in a liberal manner, seizes the courtesan Bacchis, but he does so not to satisfy his own instincts, as everyone believes, but to give her to his timid brother Ctesiphon, who dares not act for fear of his mother. In reality, Aeschinus was in love with Pamphila, the prototype of a poor but virtuous girl.
In the end, all is revealed, and the two young men manage to marry the girl they loved: Ctesiphon, the courtesan Bacchis; Aeschinus, the virtuous Pamphyla. For her part, the elderly Demesa renounces the old principles that had guided her son’s upbringing.
Ages 12 and up
Duration: Approx. 100 min.
