Fools
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| Original title: | Fools |
| Genus: | comedy |
| Original language: | English |
| Author: | Neil Simon |
| Music: | John Rubinstein |
| Premiere: | April 6, 1981 |
| Place of premiere: | Eugene O'Neill Theater, Broadway , NYC
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| Place and time of the action: | late 19th century, Kulyenchikov (Russian territory Ukraine) |
| Director of the premiere | Mike Nichols |
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Fools ( UA 1981) is a comedy by the American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Neil Simon . It is set in the late 19th century in the small Ukrainian village of Kulyenchikov on Russian territory. The plot follows the teacher Leon Steponovich Tolchinsky, who comes to Kulyenchikov to take a job as a private tutor to the young Sophia. Sophia is the daughter of the respected doctor Nikolai Zubritsky and his wife Lenya. Leon soon finds out that the village is under a curse that makes its inhabitants become stupid - but his situation only becomes really complicated when he falls in love with his student.
background
Fools was reportedly written as a result of an agreement between Simon and his then-wife during their divorce process. She was awarded the profits from his next play, so Simon went out of his way to write a play that would never survive on Broadway.
The play premiered on April 6, 1981 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater ( Broadway ). After 40 performances, the last curtain fell on May 9, 1981 for this first production. Directed by Mike Nichols , the cast included John Rubinstein , Harold Gould , Richard B. Shull , Pamela Reed . John Lee Beatty designed the set, the costumes were designed by Patricia Zipprodt, Tharon Musser was the lighting engineer and John Rubinstein was responsible as the composer.
In the years after its first Broadway run, the piece was increasingly used in student productions at various drama schools and universities; so also in Europe, where, for example, the renowned RSAMD Drama Academy (now the Royal Conservatoire ) took on the subject in 1990 . There the young acting student David Tennant was seen in one of his first leading roles , who today sits on the board of directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company and achieved international fame through Doctor Who and Broadchurch, among others .
A stylistic device frequently used in Fools is the opening of the fourth wall by the main character Leon Steponovich Tolchinsky. This means that he addresses the audience directly and repeatedly throughout the play. While the interaction between actors and audience was part of every good play in Shakespeare's time, today it is perceived as a form of falling out of the role and only used to accentuate important moments. Direct addressing of the audience is rarely used in modern dramas; the stylistic device is most likely to be found in horror films and, as here, comedies (in theater as in film ).
Adaptations
The piece was first adapted as a stage musical in 1984, it was titled The Curse of Kulyenchikov ( Eng . The curse of Kulyenchikov ). Music and lyrics are by Pat Pattinson, the libretto by Peter Melnick, directed by Paul Warner. Harvard University's musical production was performed over ten evenings from April 19 to May 5, 1984 in the Old Library at Leverett House.
With Simon's approval, Fools was rewritten as a musical one more time in 1990. This time was the piece the title Kulyenchikov , in November 1990, the production was San Jose ( California ) premiered. The revised book (libretto) as well as new music and song texts come from the locally based playwright and composer Ted Kopulos. In addition to the 14 rewritten songs, Kopulos also came up with a new character: Alexei, Leon's uncle, who makes a living as a trickster. Alexei falls unexpectedly and unwillingly in love with Yenchna and demonstrates impressively how even the cleverest con artist can be beaten by the stupidest villager with his own weapons.
action
first act
The narrative begins when the ambitious young teacher Leon Tolchinsky reaches his new home Kulyenchikov, where he is supposed to teach the doctor's daughter, Sophia Zubritsky. Upon his arrival, Leon meets an extraordinarily mindless shepherd by the name of "Something Something Snetsky, the sheep loser" (Eng. "Something something Snetsky, the sheep loser"). After a confusing and tedious conversation with Snetsky, Leon finally starts looking for his new employer, Doctor Zubritsky.
Leon has to deal with a number of other residents on his way (including Mishkin the postman, Slovitch the butcher and Yenchna the saleswoman). The location then changes to the house of the doctor and his wife. We learn that the couple are just as dodgy as the rest of the characters. Soon Leon enters the room and the two of them play their unintelligent antics for him. When the doctor mentions a curse, Leon pricks up his ears and finds out that the village's idiotism is no coincidence, but a 200-year-old curse of stupidity, uttered by Vladimir Yousekevitch after his son committed suicide. Yousekevitch's son had fallen in love with Sophia Zubritsky (an ancestor of the doctor), but the girl was forbidden to see him after her father found out the boy was illiterate. She eventually got married to another man. Yousekevitch cursed the family and the whole village, his curse can only be broken if Leon should manage to successfully educate the young Sophia. Leon is introduced to the Zubritsky's daughter and immediately falls in love with her. It starts with a few simple questions that she cannot answer meaningfully. Leon later speaks to her parents and tells them that there is still another way to break the curse: Sophia has to marry Count Gregor, the last living descendant of Yousekevitch.
Leon decides to do everything possible to break the curse. He doubts his chances of success when the doctor thinks "twelve" is the meaning of life, but Sophia's greeting spurs him on again. When Leon meets the other residents of the village again, he notices that they are not only stupid, but also unable to love. He also met Count Gregor for the first time and after a short debate he shocked Leon by saying that the curse would also overtake visitors to the city if they were not able to break it within a day. Count Gregor proposes marriage to Sophia twice a day, but each time she rejects him. Leon, on the other hand, confesses her wish to be able to fall in love with him. Leon promises her that she will be able to do so the next day.
Second act
At eight o'clock the next morning, Leon, more motivated than ever before, begins teaching Sophia; on this day he tries in vain at the basics of mathematics. The lesson develops into a debate and Leon does not get around to conveying any content to her. At nine o'clock he is not one step further and begins to lose hope.
Although the curse Leon has so far had no effect on Leon, it leaves the local residents in the belief that he is already affected. All the residents believe him, only Sophia he later tells the truth. Leon suspects that the curse is really just a psychological phenomenon that only exists because the residents were repeatedly told that they were stupid. He forges a plan that takes some time to execute. Leon persuades Count Gregor to adopt him as a son. As a result, he becomes a Yousekevitch himself and breaks the curse, at least that's what the villagers think. Leon and Sophia get engaged. At the last minute Gregor explains that the adoption papers are actually divorce papers. The wedding seems to be about to break. Gregor graciously offers to marry Sophia in Leon's place.
Leon asks Mishkin the postman to deliver him an urgent letter mentioned earlier. Leon reads the letter and announces that his uncle has died and left him all his debts. Allegedly, the uncle even changed his surname to escape his creditors - in vain. Leon is asked what his last name was and answers "Yousekevitch". In fact, the letter is an invoice from the university asking Leon to pay the remaining debt on his tuition fees. The villagers fall for the trick, the wedding ceremony continues as planned, and Kulyenchikov's curse is broken.
After the wedding, the villagers step onto the stage one after the other and the audience learn what became of the individual characters after the curse was lifted. The magistrate became a recognized judge, but succumbed to corruption and was eventually convicted of fraud. Mishkin wrote a 600-page novel about the curse of Kulyenchikov, but it got lost in the mail. Slovitch's greatest fear of being hopelessly stupid was confirmed with the purchase of four butchers in a town that only needed one. Within a month he was bankrupt. Snetsky found his sheep again and became a great philanthropist. Yenchna invested in real estate and now owns seventeen houses in Kulyenchikov, including Count Gregor's mansion. Lenya Zubritsky went into politics and became the first female mayor of Kulyenchikov. Now even her husband has to make an appointment to see her. Doctor Zubritsky was admitted to a medical academy and received an additional degree in interior design. A well-respected doctor, he now works for the royal family. Count Gregor swore from the path of evil and became a monk. Occasionally he wandered to the top of the nearby hill and prayed that God would send water down to the village. Leon continues to work as a teacher, Sophia has given birth to their first child and teaches Leon the lessons of life.
characters
- Leon Steponovitch Tolchinsky
- Sophia Irena Elenya Zubritsky
- Gregor Mikhailovitch Breznofsky Fyodor Yousekevitch (called Count Gregor )
- Doctor Nikolai Zubritsky
- Lenya Zubritsky
- Something Something Snetsky
- Mishkin
- Slovitch
- Yenchna
- Magistrates
reception
In his review for the New York Times , theater critic Frank Rich wrote, “When you watch Mr. Simon, director Mike Nichols, and a great cast go out of their way to puff the show, you get a sense of unreality. It's like a team of brilliant, highly paid surgeons have come together to operate on a splinter. While Mr. Simon does come up with a number of funny moments, there aren't an infinite number of jokes one can make about stupidity. As soon as we have found out that the peddler is successfully selling flowers as vendace , the village doctor cannot read his own eye test chart and the shepherd can no longer find his sheep, there is a certain inevitability and predictability in every punch line. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Fools (Neil Simon) . In: Samuel French, Inc. . Retrieved January 5, 2015.
- ↑ Bill Blankenship: WRHS gets silly with Neil Simon's Fools . In: Topeka Capital Journal . November 4, 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
- ^ A b Frank Rich: "Theater Review. 'Fools' by Simon'" In: The New York Times , April 7, 1981
- ^ Neil Simon: "Contents. Production" In: Fools ( Google Books ), Samuel French Inc. 1981, ISBN 0-573-60877-6 , pp. 2-5.
- ↑ Village idiots play the fool . In: The Herald , January 15, 1990. Retrieved November 22, 2017.
- ↑ "Kulyenchikov" - Music and Lyrics by Ted Kopulos . In: ted.to - Ted Kopulos . n. d. Retrieved November 5, 2014.