Synopsis
This collection includes nine monologues concerned with sexual and domestic issues and female oppression: A WOMAN ALONE, MAMMA FRICCHETONA (THE FREAK MOMMY), WAKING UP, WE ALL HAVE THE SAME STORY, DIALOGUE FOR A SINGLE VOICE, MEDEA PROLOGUE, MEDEA, MONOLOGUE OF A WHORE IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM, and IT HAPPENS TOMORROW. Dario Fo and Franca Rame are Italy's best-known performers, playwrights, and political activists. Award-winning actress and director Estelle Parsons toured this version of ORGAMSO ADULTO ESCAPES FROM THE ZOO, concluding with a triumphant run at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in New York. A WOMAN ALONE: Maria, a housewife, has been locked up at home by her jealous husband. Come to think of it, all the men in her life have been oppressing her. Good thing she has a gun. MAMMA FRICCHETONA (THE FREAK MOMMY): A mother becomes a gypsy in order to pursue her son who has joined a commune. WAKING UP: A working-class woman prepares for work while taking care of her baby. Meanwhile, her husband sleeps. WE ALL HAVE THE SAME STORY: A woman's double is a doll who says four-letter words to attract men. DIALOGUE FOR A SINGLE VOICE: A young woman invites her boyfriend up to her room. If her father wakes up, he'll cut off the young man's balls with an ax. MEDEA PROLOGUE: An introduction to the monologue MEDEA. MEDEA: A rebellious woman reacts to betrayal by resorting to infanticide. MONOLOGUE OF A WHORE IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM: A prostitute tells her life story to a psychiatrist. IT HAPPENS TOMORROW: A woman relates her story of torture as a political prisoner.
"The pieces are comic, grotesque, on purpose. First of all because we women have been crying for two thousand years. So let's laugh now, even at ourselves. And also because a certain gentleman of the theatre, who knew a lot, a certain Molière, used to say: When you go to the theatre and see a tragedy, you identify, empathise, cry, cry, cry, then go home and say, 'What a good cry I had tonight,' and you have a good night's sleep. The social significance went by like water over glass. But for us to provoke you to laughter … you have to have a brain, you have to be alert … to laugh you throw open your mouth and also your brain and into your brain are hammered the nails of reason." —Franca Rame
"Set at the point where reality and ideology rub up against each other, [these] monologues are vivid, concise and entertaining comments on the female condition … comic-but-angry, raw-but-precise." —The Independent (London)
"… buoyant, angry and vitally funny monologues … the evening becomes a rich human comedy of the sexes. Even as the women rail against their male oppressors, they see the bigger picture — their own contradictions and absurdities, the social forces that grind down men and women alike, the whole messy business of living with the alien other gender." —Steven Winn, S F Gate
"Subversive wit and theatrical extravagance." —L A Weekly
"Funny and lusty." —LA Times
Review
"The pieces are comic, grotesque, on purpose. First of all because we women have been crying for two thousand years. So let's laugh now, even at ourselves. And also because a certain gentleman of the theatre, who knew a lot, a certain Moliere, used to say: When you go to the theatre and see a tragedy, you identify, empathise, cry, cry, cry, then go home and say, 'What a good cry I had tonight, ' and you have a good night's sleep. The social significance went by like water over glass. But for us to provoke you to laughter ... you have to have a brain, you have to be alert ... to laugh you throw open your mouth and also your brain and into your brain are hammered the nails of reason." -Franca Rame"Set at the point where reality and ideology rub up against each other, [these] monologues are vivid, concise and entertaining comments on the female condition ... comic-but-angry, raw-but-precise." -The Independent (London)..". buoyant, angry and vitally funny monologues ... the evening becomes a rich human comedy of the sexes. Even as the women rail against their male oppressors, they see the bigger picture - their own contradictions and absurdities, the social forces that grind down men and women alike, the whole messy business of living with the alien other gender." -Steven Winn, S F Gate"Subversive wit and theatrical extravagance." -L A Weekly"Funny and lusty." -L A Times"
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