Act 1, Scene 1, Part 1 Summary

The play begins in the middle of Bertozzo's increasingly desperate attempts to get the Maniac to make a legal statement - he (the Maniac) has been charged with illegally impersonating a psychiatrist, and Bertozzo is intent on getting him to confess. He confronts the Maniac with his arrest record, saying he's been charged a number of times for impersonating figures from a lawyer to a bishop to a university lecturer in psychology. The Maniac answers every accusation with a cheerful admission that yes, he has posed as everything Bertozzo suggests, explaining that he suffers from a mania for performing as someone else and adds that the fellow actors in his little life plays are real people who don't know they're actors. He also says he has every right to impersonate everyone he's ever impersonated, having spent a great deal...