“We Open in Venice”

We Open In Venice stays true to it's words. The traveling theater group
puts on their one-act show. The piece is kitschy and fun, but the
troupe's lack of material is emphasized through repetition of the same
verse four times.
We created a human map of Italy to add to the dumbing down of the
act and experiment with the audience's reaction to repetitive
confusion.
“I Hate Men”
In this version, Kate is reconceptualized as the leader of performing
troupe. She begins the piece out of frustration of being the only female
in her gaggle.
Why then, in one day, I am deprived of magnificence
and glory?

Oh, cruel fate! Caesar, my beloved idol is probably

dead, Cornelia and Sextus are defenceless and cannot
give me assistance. O God! There is no hope left in my
life.
I will bemoan my fate so cruel and brutal
As long as there is breath left in my body.

And when I am dead and become a ghost, I will haunt

the tyrant night and day.
Verdi’s Falstaff
Alice Ford (the wife of John Ford a wealthy man) and Meg Page (a
neighbor to the Ford’s) both receive letters from Sir John Falstaff (who
is a fat knight) about wanting to love each of them.
Falstaff letters to both Alice and Meg are identical. With Mistress
Quickly (owner of a tavern) and Nannetta Page (Daughter of Alice and
John’s Ford.) listening to both Alice and Meg read their letters all four
plan to get even with John Falstaff.
Meg: Alice.
Alice: Meg.
Meg: Nannetta.
Alice: I was coming out just now to laugh with you. Good day, gossip.
Mrs. Quickly: God give you merriment. Rosebud!
Alice: You arrive at a good moment. A thing happened to me that is
startling.
Meg: Also to me.
Quickly: What?
Nannetta: What thing?
Alice: Tell me your tale.
Meg: Tell yours.
Nannetta: Tell. Tell.
Alice: Promise not to gossip.
Meg: What an idea!
Quickly: Oh my, the idea!
Alice: Well then, if I were prepared to enter into the evil designs of the
devil, I would be promoted to the rank of Knight’s Lady!
Meg: I too!
Alice: You’re joking!
Meg: No more words. For here we’re wasting the light of the sun. I
have a letter.
Alice: I too.
Nannetta and Quickly: Oh!
Alice: Read.
Meg: Read. “Radiant Alice, love I offer you…” What? What does he say?
Except for the name the phrase is the same.
Alice: “Radiant Meg, love I offer you…”
Meg: “Love I desire.”
Alice: Here “Meg,” there “Alice.”
Meg: It’s exactly the same. “Don’t ask why, but say to me:”
Alice: “… I love you.” Yet I offered him no motive.
Meg: Our situation is truly odd.
Quickly: Let’s look with calm.
Meg: The same verses.
Alice: The same ink.
Quickly: The same name.
Nannetta: The same coat of arms.
Alice and Meg: ”You’re the merry wife and the groom merry am I… and
between the two of us let us make a couple.”
Alice: Indeed.
Nannetta: He, she, you.
Quickly: A couple with three.
Alice: “Let us make a couple between a beautiful woman and an
attractive man in a joyous love.”
Nannetta, Meg, and Quickly: “…attractive.”
Alice: “And your face will shine upon me as a star uponthe immense
firmament.”
All: Ah! Ah! Ah!
Alice: “Reply to your squire, John Falstaff, Knight.”
All: Monster!
Alice: We must mock him
Nannetta: And make about it a fuss.
Alice: And put him to ridicule.
Nannetta: Oh! Oh! What fun!
Quickly: What merriment!
Alice: What vengeance! This wineskin! That tub! That King of bellies still has
the chatter of the handsome swain. And the oil drips off his corpulence
greasy and he still rattles off strophes and puns about his greasy fat body
dripping with oil. Let us allow him to spout off his ready chatter. He’ll act like
the pipers who came down from the mountain, you’ll see that if I trick that
fat gentleman, faster than a reel I’ll make him spin.
Quickly: That man is a cannon! If he explodes we’re done for. A wave in
a tempest cast on the beach of Windsor this voracious whale. But here
he doesn’t have space to make himself fatter: your three tongues have
already destroyed him. Three tongues merrier than a trill of castanets
that spread more chatter than six titlarks. Thus always be exhilarated
that fine twittering. Thus do the merry wives chatter.
Nannetta: If you plot a jest I want also my share. It is best to conduct it
with wisdom, with skill. It’s best for him not to glimpse the ambush
where he will trip. He has already been deceived by appearances.
Therefore I no longer doubt that the game with succeed: To catch him
promptly we must offer the bait. And if we know how to use our
tongue-strings well, we’ll see that ogre sweating in streams.
Meg: A wave in a tempest cast on the beach of Windsor this voracious
whale. That man is a cannon if he bursts he’ll kill us. If he should
embrace Juno, he would kill her. But certainly that monster would be
crushed to a pulp at a signal from you and runs to the trap and loses his
senses. The power of a fragile smile of a woman! The science of an
agile movement of a skirt! If the bird-lime covers him we’ll hear him
yell and then his ardor we’ll see cool off.
Alice: Let us dawdle here no longer.
Nannetta: You hasten to your task.
Alice: I want him to mew with love like a kitten. It’s understood.
Quickly: Yes.
Nannetta: It’s said.
Alice: Tomorrow.
Quickly: Yes.
Alice: Good day, Meg.
Quickly: Nannetta, good day.
Nannetta: Good-bye.
Meg: Good day.
Alice: You’ll see that the belly terrible and pompous swells up.
All: Swells up, and then bursts.
Alice: But the face mine on him will shine…
Alice and Nannetta: Like a star…
All: Like a star in the immensity. Ha! Ha! Ha!