Italian American Reconciliation (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) - Softcover

John Patrick Shanley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822205793 ISBN 13: 9780822205791

Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service, 1989

Synopsis

A comic folktale for 2 men and 3 women. Huey Maximilian Bonfigliano has a problem: While he is safely divorced from his shrewish first wife, Janice, who shot his dog and even took a bead on him, he feels he cannot regain his "manhood" until he woos and wins her one more time-if only to put his broken marriage behind him once and for all. He enlists the aid of his lifelong buddy, Aldo Scalicki, a confirmed bachelor who tries, without apparent success, to convince Huey that he would be better off sticking with his new lady friend, Teresa, a usually placid young waitress whose indignation flares when she learns what Huey is up to. In a moonlit balcony scene (hilariously reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac) Aldo pleads his lovesick friend's case and, to his astonishment, Janice capitulates-although not for long. However we do learn that her earlier abuse of Huey was intended to make him "act like a man" which, at last, he does. And, more than that, he (and the audience) become aware that, in the final essence, "the greatest-and only-success is to be able to love"-a truth which emerges delightfully from the heartwarming, wonderfully antic and always imaginatively conceived action of the play.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0822205793
• ISBN 13: 9780822205791
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 72