Fable & Plot Summary

Fable

A young woman (LYDIA) in a torn wedding dress arrives onstage. She sees a bathtub, undresses, and gets in the tub. She meets a young man (GIULIANO) and tells him that she and her sisters have run away to prevent being married to their cousins. (They are from Greece but have come to Sicily on the big ship that now sits in the harbor.) Giuliano leaves and Lydia is joined by two of her sisters (OLYMPIA and THYONA). Olympia sings, “You Don’t Own Me,” and eventually is joined by her sisters.

An old lady (BELLA) arrives carrying a basket of tomatoes. She uses each tomato to describe her 13 sons: for sons who have disappointed her, she smashes the tomato. Then her oldest son PIERO arrives. The three sisters beg him for refuge, which he eventually offers them. After mother and son leave, Giuliano returns and shares his story about playing with Ken and Barbie dolls as well as an encounter with an older man on a train with whom he might have fallen in love and spent the rest of his life.

At some point, we meet an English woman and her Italian companion (LEO), who are houseguests at Piero’s, and at another point, Piero has a slow “father-daughter” dance with Lydia.

Finally left alone, the three sisters each offer a monologue about their feelings about me. Olympia wants a man, but only if he can live up to her idealized dreams. Thyona hates men…period. Lydia is more realistic and wants a relationship built and mutual love and respect. The climax of these monologues is the women flinging themselves to the floor, then getting up, and then repeating several times.

The grooms finally arrive (via helicopter) wearing flight suits covering their tuxes. There is an exchange with the sisters but Piero arrives to welcome into his house and freshen up. While the men are inside, they “negotiate” a wedding that will occur immediately here at Piero’s villa.

The men return in different, casual clothes and offer monologues about/against women, all while flinging themselves to the floor (as the women had done earlier). There is an encounter of the 3 grooms and 3 brides before Giuliano and the houseguests return bearing wedding gifts. The men announce that the wedding will happen asap.

The three sisters conspire: they will marry their grooms but, on their wedding night, murder them…which is what they do with additional, recently arrive sisters and grooms (up to 47 more of each). The wedding massacre is staged as a huge movement piece with music. Giuliano attends, also wearing a wedding dress.

Lydia and Nikos have fallen in love with each other, and Lydia cannot bring herself to murder Nikos. After the slaughter, Bella volunteers to “judge” the sisters. After hearing each, she acquits them. The final scene is the awkward and uncertain departure of Lydia and Nikos.

Dave's Outline of Text, Music, & Movement (not required)

The style is a collision of text, music and movement—what we think of as the elements of musical comedy, but crashing together in unusual ways...
http://www.actorstheatre.org/HUMANA%20FESTIVAL%20CDROM/play_love.htm

Lydia and the bathtub (movement)
Lydia meets Giuliano (text)
Thyona and Olympia arrive: "You Don't Own Me" (music)
Bella and her tomatoes (text)
Piero meets the sisters and offers refuge (text)
The sisters' indictment of men (text)
Arrival of the grooms (text)
Sisters rolling on floor "These men!" (movement and text)
Giuliano and Barbies and wedding gifts (text)
Giuliano sings "Beguiled Again" (music)
Eleanor and Leo arrive (text)
Lydia and Leo dance (movement)
Giuliano's "I knew a man once" (text)
Lydia and Nikos on love and marriage (text)
Lydia and Nikos' long, long sweet dance (movement)
Brothers rolling on floor (movement and text)
Cake arrives: wedding on go (text)
Three sisters conspire (text)
Eleanor and wedding dresses (text)
Weddings and murders (movement)
Aftermath and judgement (text)
Lydia and Nikos leave (movement)


Plot Summary

Big Love is set on the coast of present day Italy. The action begins with the arrival at an Italian villa of eight of fifty Greek sisters who have fled (by yacht) their wedding ceremony to their Greek-American cousins. The sisters meet Piero, the wealthy owner of the villa and supplicate themselves to him asking for asylum. They claim international refugee status and seek Piero’s protection from their arranged marriages to their cousins. The brothers eventually pursue them to Piero’s villa via helicopter. While one brother, Nikos is truly puzzled by his betrothed, Lydia’s flight, another is outraged. Constantine is ready to take what is his, as he states, “I’ll have my bride. If I have to have her arms tied behind her back and dragged to me. I’ll have her back.”

With the arrival of the brothers and Piero’s compliance to their demand to be married immediately, the girls decide to take action. All of the sisters make a pact to murder their husbands on their wedding night. With that knowledge the girls prepare for the wedding with the help of some houseguests of Piero as well as his feckless nephew, Giuliano, who longs for his own wedding and bedecks himself in hopes of being able to participate in the day’s big event.

Wedding gifts arrive and a cake is ordered as the tension escalates. With the marriage ceremony completed, the celebration begins with toasts and a first dance. During this the grooms are all murdered except for Nikos, Lydia’s husband. The couple is discovered by the sisters and Lydia is put on trial for “treason.” Bella acts as judge and after hearing both sides of the story, she acquits Lydia. The celebration continues and the sisters bid farewell to Lydia and Nikos, who depart to an uncertain future, leaving the sisters face their own future alone.
http://www.trft.org/TRFTPix/BigLoveStudyGuide.pdf