The Love Of Three Oranges: A Play For The Theatre That Takes The Commedia Dell'arte Of Carlo Gozzi And Updates It For The New Millennium

by Hillary DePiano

Prince Tartaglia’s life is filled with misery until an evil witch and her equally evil henchmen concoct a plan to kill him by sending him on a quest for three giant oranges. This quest, however, soon proves more fruitful than he could have imagined. Once he leaves the sheltered world of the castle he finds a friend in a clown, love in an orange, and most of all laughter in everything he meets. Throw in witches, wizards, princesses, an effeminate unionized devil, a few ferocious inanimate objects, melodramatic monarchs and a wild narrator who isn’t sure how far removed from the story he is and what you have in the end is a flurry of comedy, parody, and quality that succeeds on every level.

Genres: Plays

104 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2003

About the author

Hillary DePiano is a playwright and author of fiction and non-fiction, best known for her adaptations of Carlo Gozzi's The Love of Three Oranges and The Green Bird, which have been performed in theaters around the world. A folk and fairy-tale nerd, Hillary has mucked with myths from the nursery to the North Pole in over two dozen plays and other fiction works. As her alter ego, The Whine Seller, Hillary is also the author of multiple non-fiction titles including bestsellers about selling on e-commerce platforms like eBay, writing, and publishing. Since 2010, Hillary also has volunteered with NaNoWriMo and its sister event, Script Frenzy, as a Municipal Liaison helping writers of all ages get excited about literacy and the written word. She currently resides in New Jersey which inconsiderately contains four oranges.

For more information about her books, plays, and blogs or to connect via social media, find Hillary DePiano at HillaryDePiano.com.

Reviews

[Katie Pagliaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

not really sure but i think the narrator and the wizard are the same person.

[KT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our performances were the 18th and 19th, and now it's over. DEPRESSION! Of course, not everything went smoothly for each show. On the first night, a tree fell down onstage and nearly crushed a crew member who was making a scene change ((I was offstage at the time, and I yelled, "Timber!"))

Also at the first show, our light board froze, and all the lights in the house went out. Thankfully, we had planned for this, and the two people working the spotlights, turned them on and made them as big as they could, lighting up the people onstage. Luckily, there were only three people onstage when it happened ((they didn't even pause in their lines–just kept on talking in the darkness as if nothing had happened. IS that good acting or what?))

At one point in the show, I had to run through the audience. I picked a row that was partially empty and ran down it, startling the girls in the row ((at least one of them was texting, I'm sure)), and they screamed bloody murder. It took all my willpower not to start cracking up.

The second night, one of our lightsabers broke in the middle of a fight scene. Poor Cathy just looked down at the handle, the only thing left in her hand, looked back up at Sabrina, who was equally befuddled, and screamed, "AHHH!" and just kept fighting as if she still had the colored stick part attached to the handle.

Despite everything that went unplanned in our performances, I know that we all still had a lot of fun.

I'M SO SAD THAT IT'S OVER!!! I WANT TO BE A CLOWN AGAIN!!

Oh, yeah. I forgot. I'm a clown at heart XDD

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

"LEANDRO. You don't see comedies winning the awards and critical acclaim. We'll need to raise our brow a bit higher. Our court will have the kind of art that's good for us: stories steeped in searing political commentary, reflective pieces that examine the futility of the human condition and those delightful English class staples where every line needs a corresponding footnote to decode it.

BRIGHELLA. But don't you think sometimes people enjoy something a little more relatable? Just your standard good versus evil, they lived happily every after...?

CLARICE. You are just so lost, aren't you? Nobody likes stories like that anymore. They like something they can wear their pearls to and discuss over an expensive glass of scotch.

LEANDRO. If you had you're way, we'd be sharing our art with the rabble. (He shudders.) If you must do comedy, do the dark satire, the ironic parody, the self aware serio-comedy.

CLARICE. Broad comedy and slapstick is so last millennium."

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Love of Three Oranges is a completely hilarious and fantastically ridiculous play. The entire time I was reading, I just kept thinking about how fun it would be to be involved in a production of this show. But no matter how contrived, unbelievable, or ridiculous the plot becomes, the audience will accept it because of how much it makes fun of ordinary storytelling devices. It is fun, funny, and very enjoyable; I would love to see it on the stage.

[Tori.T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some racy innuendo, puppetry and tons of physical comedy. A huge cast in a silly fairy tale kingdom. This would be so fun to do, but a real stretch for us. Not even good for readers theater because of all the physical comedy. Maybe in another life or with an ambitious director with teenage actors.

[Mark Woodland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely one of the most irritating plays for children that I've ever read. It's based on an old opera, if memory serves me correctly. What's bothersome is that every fact or event of significance is repeated three times. This is formulaic and was done on purpose, on the theory that in order for children to remember what's going on, you have to repeat it three times. Apparently, this was written by some academic with no actual experience in performing for children. Even children don't like having their intelligence insulted; I've seen this performed, and only the very youngest seemed to enjoy it. A large percentage of the children were bored to tears because it took so long for everything to happen. It was directed by a woman with a PhD in Children's Theatre. Which once again shows that academic knowledge of an art form is no substitute for the experience and skill of actually doing it. I certainly have no objection at all to academia and research faculty, but I have always objected to their sometimes smug over-ruling of active performing artists on the grounds that we don't know any better. The last bad Shakespeare play you saw was likely directed by such a person.