This Student Edition of Goldoni's classic 18th century play, A Servant to Two Masters, features expert and helpful annotation, ideal for anyone studying or performing the play. Editor Joseph Farrell's accessible Introduction includes a plot synopsis, a commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well a list of suggested reading, questions for further study and a review of performance history.
The play revolves around the wily, greedy servant Truffaldino, who in trying to fill both his purse and his stomach, attempts to serve two masters simultaneously. Meanwhile, his mistress disguises herself as her dead brother to claim the dowry from his bewildered, bereft fiancee. The plot is full of mishaps and mix-ups, confusions, disguises and mistaken identity, before the murder and entangled romances can be resolved.
Lee Hall's contemporary, faithful version is fast-paced, funny and idiomatic. Updating the comedy for the reader and audience, this version is thoroughly accessible, whilst also portraying the plot's tricks and absurdities with comic flair.
Carlo Goldoni (1707-93) was an Italian dramatist born in Venice who wrote over 200 comedies, tragedies and tragicomedies in his lifetime. Goldoni settled in Paris in the 1760s, directing the Comédie-Italienne there. In 1783 his company moved to a new theatre on the street now known as the Boulevard des Italiens; they merged with the Théâtre Feydeau to form the Opéra-Comique in 1801. His works include tragedies: Rosmonda (1734), Griselda (1734); tragicomedies: Belisario (1734), Rinaldo di Montalbano (1736); and comedies such as The Servant of Two Masters (1745) and The Mistress of the Inn (1751).
Lee Hall has won numerous awards, including a Sony award for his phenomenally popular radio play Spoonface Steinberg, which later transferred to the stage in a production with Kathryn Hunter. His play Cooking With Elvis had a sell-out run at the Whitehall Theatre throughout 2000, after his stint as Writer in Residence at the RSC. His adaptation of A Servant to Two Masters was a smash hit for the RSC and the Young Vic, and continues to tour worldwide. His two Brecht adaptations, Mr Puntilla and his Man Matti and Mother Courage and her Children were both sell-out successes in the West End. Lee Hall was Oscar nominated for his screenplay Billy Elliot.
Joseph Farrell is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Strathclyde. He has written on and translated Italian theatre widely. He is theatre reviewer for The Scotsman, as well as the author of Dario Fo and France Rame: Harlequins of the Revolution (Methuen, 2001), and has edited A History of Italian Theatre (CUP, 2006) as well as Methuen Student editions of Six Characters in Search of an Author and Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Jenny Stevens was an Associate Lecturer for the Open University and currently combines educational consultancy work with teaching and writing. She is the co-author with Pamela Bickley of Essential Shakespeare: The Arden Guide to Text and Interpretation (2013) and Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Text and Performance (2016).
Chris Megson is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has taught and published widely in the field of modern drama, and is editor of The Methuen Drama Book of Naturalist Plays. Other works include: Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present (with Alison Forsyth, 2011), and Modern British Playwriting: The 70s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (2012).
