This is the second (and last, as far as we know -- there is a rumor from Goldwyn's widow Kaitlyn O'Mallin of a third one, but we've never seen it) of Goldwyn's scripted Comedias. This one went even better than the previous one, and the cast received a well-earned standing ovation. Goldwyn definitely has a way of writing that is fun to perform ...

As is typical of the Comedia style, most of the same characters return for this play, as well as some interesting new characters, including Arlecchino (who wasn't in Arlecchino's Surprise -- surprise!).

The Synopsis: Pantelone (Isabella's father) wants to marry her off (again) for money. This time to the Duke of Beacon's Gate. (Goldwyn used a lot of Caidan branch references, which we cheerfully changed to Western references instead.) Brighella (a villain), upon overhearing this, determines to have a little fun. He finds Capitano and his ... faithful ... man servant (Arlecchino) on the streets of Verona (?), and convinces them that the penalty for begging is death, and the only way out is to marry Pantelone's daughter.

So, Capitano fakes being the Duke of Beacon's Gate (a title he has a hard time remembering, and when introducing himself to Pantelone, calls himself the Duke of Bellatrix ...). Meanwhile, Leandro is courting Valeria (Isabella's best 'friend'), Lelio (looks just like Leandro to everyone in the play -- which was funny, as the actors had a height difference of about 1.5 feet!) However, Leandro, Lelio, Isabella, and Valeria are all confused over who loves who (actually it's a case of Valeria and Isabella (not to mention Lelio and Leandro) being rivals as well as friends ...).

Pantalone is interested in Columbina, the servant of his daughter. So, he ends up buying a love potion from Fiorinetta. Things get more and more convoluted from there, until the end, where of course, everything gets unravelled.

The stage directions for this one don't make a lot of sense until you actually start moving the actors around on stage. There are chase sequences that start about halfway through the play and continue to the end, getting stranger and more frequent ... we had a scorecard on the back of the program as a lark so that people could try to keep track. The ones who tried gave up after about the fourth chase ...

Incidents: This was a pretty tame performance on the one hand -- no casting problems. However, during the curtain call, while we were being very silly (who, us?), Anne managed to run into the wine-glass that contained the grape jelly we used to show the bad wine (it's a very funny bit, waiting for the wine to glop into the glass from the bottle ...), slipped and hurt her ankle a bit (not really badly). The audience thought that the slip (after she got up and continued chasing Arlecchino off stage with his own slapstick) was on purpose, and she got a great round of applause.

The prologue for this one was something that Anne came up with. I came out with a scroll and a quill (ostrich feather) pen. I started to read what was on the scroll, and stopped. I scratched something out and wrote something else in, and started to read and ... did this several times, and finally just looked up at the audience and said "Cope!" and walked off.

This play was our first (and well-deserved, if I may say so) standing ovation.

The Script:
Arlecchino and the Cup of Love: Acrobat

Video Tape: Yes. The only problem is that the site was a gym in a school, right next to a major bus-stop in downtown San Francisco -- we have several spots where the sound of the busses nearly drowns out the play ...

DVD: Now available as part of the "Arlecchino Plays" (includes Arlecchino's Surprise), contact Hirsch for details (probably $5-10, just to cover the cost of the discs, the case, etc. and any postage would need to be tacked on).

Photos: We have photographs by Hal Ravn at the West Kingdom History web site: Arlecchino and the Cup of Love Photos.

The Cast:

This is where we started playing with the programs -- we had this whole back page with nothing on it, so we started adding things to them ... not to mention comments taken from Monty Python's Holy Grail interspersed in small print in places throughout the script ...

The back of the program had the following scorecard: