Liolà

by Luigi Pirandello, Tanya Ronder (Adapter)

A funny and touching new version of Pirandello's high-spirited drama, set at the heart of a rural community where property and family unleash fierce passions.

Sicily, summer 1916. The women gather to harvest old Simone’s almond crop. He’s the richest landowner in the district but he has no heir. Local lad Liolà, untroubled by convention, has fathered three boys, each with a different mother. When another of the girls falls pregnant, Simone is persuaded he might recognize the baby as his own, much to his young wife, Mita's, despair. But he underestimates the power of Liolà, who has his own unusual sense of what's right and wrong - and a way with women to make your hair curl.

"Earthy, exuberant and fecund with symbolism and superstition... it leaves behind a delicious, golden glow." - The Times

"Winning... touching and entertaining, it glows with the warmth of summer." - Telegraph

"Wonderfully warm... thoroughly entertaining." - Exeunt Magazine

Tanya Ronder trained at RADA as an actress before becoming a playwright. Her plays include adaptations of Blood Wedding (Almeida Theatre), Vernon God Little (Young Vic, nominated for an Olivier Award) and Peribanez, and Table, which was the inaugural production at the National Theatre's temporary venue, The Shed.

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story writer, whose best known plays include Six Characters in Search of an Author, Tonight We Improvise and Each in His Own Way. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Italian Literature, 20th Century, Italy

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 1916

About the author

Luigi Pirandello; Agrigento (28 June 1867 – Rome 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays.

He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art"

Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Reviews

[Marina Di Clemente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dopo aver letto 'Liolà' con un po' di perplessità (scusate la rima) ho seguitato la lettura anche di 'Così è se vi pare' e Pirandello come sempre non delude per l'imprevedibilità dei suoi personaggi e del filo caotico delle sue trame, che come funamboli danzano sempre sull'orlo del baratro, oscillando tra la follia e la realtà.

[Christian Molenaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must be watching too much Fellini bc somehow I found this little Pirandello comedy from his pre-postmodern era deeply endearing. Italians!!

[K.O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant play.

[Scull17 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young guy is impregnating all the girls in the village; he thinks he's a cool dude because he's supporting three of his kids, but who knows how many kids he really has (probably thirty). Then there's this other character (an old guy who's just as creepy as the young guy) who likes to beat his wife in front of the neighbors. It's supposed to be a comedy.

[Patrick Neylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a play for reading, having been adapted with folk singing to make for a performance piece without which the show lacks that magic. I didn't really warm to any of the characters, whose moral values are steeped in early 20th century Sicily. Possibly one is supposed to warm to Liola because he sings and takes care of his children, but I found him manipulative and morally bankrupt, and his manipulations of the women and old man Simeone seem motivated by little more than ego.

The play won't endear itself to fans of Six Characters In Search of an Author, as there's no post-modernist angle to intrigue and confuse.

[Crepuscolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liolà e il suo corteo di bambini baccheggianti.