Theater Neapolitan Style: Five One-Act Plays

Theater Neapolitan Style introduces five one act plays by Eduardo De Filippo to English speaking readers and audiences for the first time. Both individually and collectively, these works bring into clear focus the atmosphere and environment of pre- and post-World War II Naples. At the same time they offer the reader/spectator glimpses into unforgettable lives and situations - glimpses that record De Filippo's favorite emblems with marvelous clarity: a Neapolitan setting; a Neapolitan family; a Neapolitan commedia figure.We witness the playwright's uncanny ability to mix comic and tragic elements simultaneously as romantic courtship prevails despite poverty and infirmity in Philosophically Speaking: a tired marriage and the temptation of youthful flirtation oppose each other in Gennareniello: a government clerk happens upon the demolition of his childhood home in So Long, Fifth Floor; an old actor fantasizes about performing a major role once again in The Part of Hamlet: and a tired salesman learns that his room has been used for the laying out of his deceased landlord in Dead People Aren't Scary.