Giambattista Basile – författare

The Tale of Tales, made up of forty-nine fairy tales within a fiftieth frame story, contains the earliest versions of celebrated stories like Rapunzel, All-Fur, Hansel and Gretel, The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. The tales are bawdy and irreverent but also tender and whimsical, acute in psychological characterization and encyclopedic in description. They are also evocative of marvelous worlds of fairy-tale unreality as well as of the everyday rituals of life in seventeenth-century Naples. Yet because the original is written in the nonstandard Neopolitan dialect of Italian—and was last translated fully into English in 1932—this important piece of Baroque literature has long been inaccessible to both the general public and most fairy-tale scholars.Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones is a modern translation that preserves the distinctive character of Basile’s original. Working directly from the original Neopolitan version, translator Nancy L. Canepa takes pains to maintain the idiosyncratic tone of The Tale of Tales as well as the work’s unpredictable structure. This edition keeps the repetition, experimental syntax, and inventive metaphors of the original version intact, bringing Basile’s words directly to twenty-first-century readers for the first time. This volume is also fully annotated, so as to elucidate any unfamiliar cultural references alongside the text. Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones is also lushly illustrated and includes a foreword, an introduction, an illustrator’s note, and a complete bibliography.The publication of The Tale of Tales marked not only a culmination of the interest in the popular culture and folk traditions of the Renaissance period but also the beginning of the era of the artful and sophisticated ""authored"" fairy tale that inspired and influenced later writers like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones offers an excellent point of departure for reflection about what constitutes Italian culture, as well as for discussion of the relevance that forms of early modern culture like fairy tales still hold for us today. This volume is vital reading for fairy-tale scholars and anyone interested in cultural history.

Giambattista Basile was a seventeenth-century Italian poet whom the Grimms credit with recording the first national collection of fairy tales. The Tale of Tales opens with Princess Zoza, unable to laugh no matter how funny the joke. Her father, the king, attempts to make her smile; instead he leaves her cursed whereupon the prince she is destined to marry is snatched up by another woman. To expose this impostor and win back her rightful husband, Zosa contrives a storytelling extravaganza: fifty fairy tales to be told by ten sharp-tongued women (including Zoza in disguise) over five days. Funny and scary, romantic and gruesome, and featuring kings and queens, dragons and seduction, The Tale of Tales is a fairy-tale treasure that prefigures Game of Thrones and other touchstones of worldwide fantasy literature

Now a major motion picture starring Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, and Vincent Cassel: a rollicking, bawdy, fantastical cycle of 50 fairy tales told by 10 storytellers over 5 days  Before the Brothers Grimm, before Charles Perrault, before Hans Christian Andersen, there was Giambattista Basile, a seventeenth-century poet from Naples, Italy, whom the Grimms credit with recording the first national collection of fairy tales. The Tale of Tales—also known as The Pentamerone—opens with Princess Zoza, unable to laugh no matter how funny the joke. Her father, the king, attempts to make her smile; instead he leaves her cursed, whereupon the prince she is destined to marry is snatched up by another woman. To expose this impostor and win back her rightful husband, Zoza contrives a storytelling extravaganza: fifty fairy tales to be told by ten sharp-tongued women (including Zoza in disguise) over five days.   Funny and scary, romantic and gruesome—and featuring a childless queen who devours the heart of a sea monster cooked by a virgin, and who then gives birth the very next day; a lecherous king aroused by the voice of a woman, whom he courts unaware of her physical grotesqueness; and a king who raises a flea to monstrous size on his own blood, sparking a contest in which an ogre vies with men for the hand of the king’s daughter—The Tale of Tales is a fairy-tale treasure that prefigures Game of Thrones and other touchstones of worldwide fantasy literature.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Looking for a large cast comedy play script with plenty of female roles for your next festival or drama competition? The Fourth Orange is a zany fairy tale mash-up with a modern citrus twist!

There were only supposed to be three oranges. All Franceschina had to do was deliver one measly basket of sausages to the witch and go on her way. But, no, she had to play the hero and ended up cursed and forgotten, caught in the crossfire of someone else’s fairy tale. Well, from now on, she’s minding her own business and leaving the action to the real heroes. But when a dragon is destroying the kingdom and nobody will do anything about it, it’ll be up to Franceschina to decide what part she really wants to play.

A mash-up of the Italian fairy tale, The Merchant, from Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales (Il Pentamerone, Lo cunto de li cunti) with characters from Carlo Gozzi’s The Love of Three Oranges, The Fourth Orange is a wacky commedia-style fairy tale adaptation for all ages.

Comedy / FantasyOne Act Stage Play20-30 minutes4 m, 6 f, 5 any (7-20+ actors possible)

Features

Flexible staging.Suitable for all ages.Large cast with majority female roles.Ensemble with plenty to do that can expand based on your casting needs.Opportunities for physical comedy, masked commedia dell’arte, improvisation and puppets.Great length for drama competitions and classroom study.Both prequel and sequel to Hillary DePiano’s adaptations of Carlo Gozzi’s The Love of Three Oranges and The Green Bird. Perform all three one-acts back to back for an evening’s entertainment!

Fairly Obscure Fairy Tale Plays

Looking for some crowd-pleasing, funny fairy tale plays that aren’t the same old standards? Playwright Hillary DePiano presents the weirdest and wackiest lesser-known folk and fairy tales as family friendly stage adaptations perfect for schools and community theatre. From large cast, one-act comedies to commedia dell’arte scripts with a modern twist for classroom use, there are plenty of options to help your group live happily ever after!

Want to combine any of the plays together to make an evening’s entertainment? Interstitials and connecting scenes are available upon request.

Looking for a large cast comedy play script with plenty of female roles for your next festival or drama competition? It’s time to get Goosed!

When two poor sisters save a goose from the butcher, the animal is so grateful it produces them piles of gold. But when their greedy neighbors want the treasure for themselves, they discover this goose isn’t so easily cooked. From a blood thirsty fowl with golden stool to a careless prince who gets it in the end, soon everyone is feeling the pinch. With a large cast, majority female roles, lots of physical comedy and room for improvisation, Goosed is an Italian fairy tale in the classic slapstick tradition that’s a butt-load of fun for all ages to watch and perform.

Kindness is as good as gold in this modern adaptation of The Goose from Giambattista Basile’s The Tale of Tales (Il Pentamerone, Lo cunto de li cunti).

Comedy / FantasyOne Act Stage Play25-35 minutes6 Female 1 Male 5 AnyCast size: 11-unlimited

Ideal for middle school to high school teen performers through adults

Features

Simple, flexible staging.Large cast with majority female roles.Ensemble with plenty to do that can expand based on your casting needs.Opportunities for physical comedy, masked commedia dell’arte, improvisation and puppets.School friendly version with tamer content available.Great length for drama competitions and classroom study.

Fairly Obscure Fairy Tale Plays

Looking for some crowd-pleasing, funny fairy tale plays that aren’t the same old standards? Playwright Hillary DePiano presents the weirdest and wackiest lesser-known folk and fairy tales as family friendly stage adaptations perfect for schools and community theatre. From large cast, one-act comedies to commedia dell’arte scripts with a modern twist for classroom use, there are plenty of options to help your group live happily ever after!

Want to combine any of the plays together to make an evening’s entertainment? Interstitials and connecting scenes are available upon request.