COMING ON MARCH 23, 2019!

The Cosmos Theatre presents a Staged Reading of

L’EBREO

(The Jew)

A Carnival Comedy from 1614 by 

 Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger 

SATURDAY MARCH 23, 2019

11:30 AM

WARNE BALLROOM

COSMOS CLUB

WASHINGTON, DC

Adapted by: Edward Goldberg

Directed by: Tarpley Long 

Executive Producer: Anthony E. Gallo

CAST:

MONNA SIMONETTA          TARPLEY LONG

ALAMANNO TOLOSINI       STANLEY CLOUD

DIANORA TOLOSINI           GLORIA RALL

ORETTA TOLOSINI              SOPHY BURNHAM

LUCIA                                       LEONORE SALZMAN

RIHA                                         BEATRIX WHITEHALL

GIOVANNI BARBA               MILES BENSON

GIROLAMO AMIERI            RICHARD WAUGAMAN

AMBROGIO BORDONI        MARK YOUNG

FEDERIGO                              RODNEY ROSENSTEIN

MELCHISEDEC                     GEORGE SPENCER             

UNDERSTUDY                      BUNTY KETCHUM

SOUND DIRECTOR             BEATRIX WHITEHALL

PLACE AND TIME:

Florence, in 1614, during the Carnival season.

The story unfolds—scene after scene--in the course of a single day.

ACT ONE 

SCENE 1    A FLORENTINE STREET

SCENE 2    THE HOME OF GIROLAMO AMIERI

SCENE 3    THE HOME OF AMBROGIO BORDONI

SCENE 4    IN THE STREET

SCENE 5    THE HOME OF ALAMANNO TOLOSINI

SCENE 6    THE HOME OF AMBROGIO BORDONI         

SCENE 7    THE HOME OF ALAMANNO TOLOSINI

SCENE 8    ON THE PONTE VECCHIO

SCENE 9    IN THE STREET

SCENE 10  THE HOME OF ALAMANNO TOLOSINI

             

FIFTEEN MINUTE INTERMISSION:  DESSERT, FRUIT, COFFEE AND TEA WILL BE SERVED

ACT TWO 

SCENE 1    IN THE STREET

SCENE 2    MELCHISEDEC’S HOME IN THE GHETTO         

SCENE 3    IN THE STREET       

SCENE 4    IN THE STREET

SCENE 5    UPSTAIRS IN THE TOLOSINI HOME 

SCENE 6    UPSTAIRS IN THE TOLOSINI HOME

SCENE 7    ELSEWHERE IN THE TOLOSINI HOME

SCENE 8    IN THE STREET

SCENE 9    UPSTAIRS IN THE TOLOSINI HOME

SCENE 10  THE HOME OF GIROLAMO AMIERI

SCENE 11  THE HOME OF ALAMANNO TOLOSINI

SCENE 12   IN THE STREET       

SCENE 13   THE HOME OF AMBROGIO BORDONI         

SCENE 14   IN THE STREET    

SCENE 15   IN THE STREET

SCENE 16   MELCHISEDEC’S HOME IN THE GHETTO         

SCENE 17   IN THE STREET

 

ABOUT L’EBREO:

A world première, no less! This rollicking comedy— with a Jew in the title role—was written for the Carnival of 1614 at the Medici Court, by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (great-nephew, heir and namesake of the celebrated painter, sculptor and architect).

“Think Molière,” says Tony Gallo (’93), who is directing the staged reading, “but better!” Buonarroti (1568-1646) and Moliere (1622-73) were both intrigued by the Italian commedia dell’arte, with its manic energy, exaggerated characters and preposterous conflicts. But what is a Jew doing in the midst of this comic mayhem—especially a Turkish Jew named Melchisedec (“King of the Righteous”), with a turban, a long robe and a hennaed beard?

“1614 was a wild time in the Tuscan capital,” Ed Goldberg explained, “especially when it came to the Jewish population. Rich Sephardic merchants were arriving from the Ottoman Empire, forming a small but exclusive circle in the local ghetto. With their exotic dress, foreign manners and evident wealth, they seized everyone’s attention—in the streets of Florence and at the Medici Court.”

Edward Goldberg is a Washington native with a Ph.D. from Oxford. For most of the last forty years, he has lived in Florence, exploring public and private archives. Along the way, he published various books and articles, including Jews and Magic in Medici Florence and A Jew at the Medici Court (both University of Toronto Press, 2011).

What about Michelangelo the Younger’s play, L’Ebreo (The Jew)? Goldberg discovered the autograph manuscript in the Casa Buonarroti, that family’s historic palazzo, only a few blocks from his own home. In scene after raucous scene, we see Melchisedec—a classic Levantino (Jew from the East)—surrounded by boisterous characters from the commedia dell’arte: impetuous young lovers, overbearing elders, riotous servants and gossipy neighbors, plus a pompous lawyer and a scheming marriage broker. We watch them trip over each other’s feet in the mad whirl of the Florentine Carnival, the annual silly season between Epiphany (Twelfth Night) and Lent.

“Melchisedec is the ultimate anti-Shylock”, Goldberg observed. “Ironic but good-natured. Always in on the joke.” “Buonarroti was far less tolerant, when it came to lawyers,” Gallo noted with a laugh. “If there are ‘bad guys’ in the piece, it’s them!”

Brilliant and lively, richly evocative of Late Renaissance Florence, L’Ebreo (The Jew) seems like a guaranteed hit. So, why did it have to wait four hundred years for its début on the world stage?

“No one could read it!” Goldberg sighed. “Buonarroti abandoned L’Ebreo as a scrawled draft, with a dense overlay of cross-outs and rewrites. Thank God for high-resolution photography! Thank God for image-enhancement!”

With L’Ebreo (The Jew), Goldberg faced a triple challenge. First he had to retrieve the author’s own words. Next, he needed to delve beneath layers of revision to reveal the play’s dramatic core. Only then could he shape this material into a performable script—in English—while preserving the sound and sense of the original.