An Italian Straw Hat
Description
The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.
An Italian Straw Hat is a classic farce from 1851.
Fadinard is on the way to his wedding when his horse eats a straw hat hanging on a bush. The owner of the hat is a former girlfriend who insists that Fadinard buys her a new hat instantly. He sets off to find a replacement hat, followed by his fiancée and all their guests. The play develops into a delirious chase as Fadinard hunts the hat and the guests hunt Fadinard and comic misunderstandings litter every scene.
Translated and introduced by Kenneth McLeish.
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Persons
Eugène Marin Labiche (5 May 1815 - 23 January 1888) was a French dramatist.
He was considered a successful but undistinguished vaudevillist until the success of his five-act farce, Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie (The Italian Straw Hat) in August 1851. For the next twenty-five years, he continued to write successful comedies and vaudevilles. "Of all the subjects," he said, "which offered themselves to me, I have selected the bourgeois. Essentially mediocre in his vices and in his virtues, he stands half-way between the hero and the scoundrel, between the saint and the profligate."
Labiche died in Paris and was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Contents
- Introduction
- For Further Reading
- Labiche: Key Dates
- Characters
- An Italian Straw Hat
- Act One
- Act Two
- Act Three
- Act Four
- Act Five
- Music Numbers
- Copyright and Performing Rights Information
