Il Campiello

This Goldoni comedy recounts the matrimonial scheming, gossip, and games enlivening the daily activity of a bustling but poor Venetian piazza where gaming, dancing and pandemonium reign. The haughty Gasparina catches the attention and interest of an attractive visiting Count. Zaretta and Gnese are two years too young to marry as their mothers desperately desire. Lucietta is not trusted by her jealous and handsome fiancé, Anzoletto, and the toothless mothers of all are busily plotting for husbands of their own. Squabbles run throughout this madcap story of the square, are silenced by a wedding feast, and erupt again as the festivities draw to a close. "The coarse Latin flavor of [the characters'] scraps is nicely captured by Richard Nelson's new adaptation, in suitably vulgar modern English." James Lardner, Washington Post