The World of the Play: Macro View

1. MM: A Peaceful New Millenium?

The International Year for the Culture of Peace was designated by the United Nations as the year 2000, with the aim of celebrating and encouraging a culture of peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Year_for_the_Culture_of_Peace

Presidents of North and South Korea sign peace accord, and at least symbolically, end a half-century of antagonism (June 13).
http://www.infoplease.com/year/2000.html

After making it into the new millenium without systemmatic Y2K catastrophe, and months before the Twins Towers tragedy and years before the global economic meltdown, there was little reason to expect anything but good times on the horizon.

2. Guests Welcome?

2000 Jubilee Year (Holy Year)
The concept of the Jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. [...] Christian Jubilees, particularly in the Catholic tradition, generally involve pilgrimage to a sacred site, normally the city of Rome. At various times in Church history, they have been celebrated every 50 or 25 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(Christian)

Official End of Yugoslavia
In Sept. 2000, federal elections in Yugoslavia formally ended the autocratic rule of Slobodan Milosevic, who had entangled his country in almost continuous war, first with the breakaway republics of Croatia and Bosnia (1991–1995) and then in the Serbian province of Kosovo in 1998, which ended with the NATO bombing of 1999. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0877236.html

Illegal Immigrants
Italy's long coastline and developed economy entices tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from southeastern Europe and northern Africa.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/IT.html

In addition to the 50 brides and their would-be grooms, Italy was inundated with visitors in 2000, many (pilgrims and tourists) bolstering the economy and cordially welcomed, while others (refugees) strained the very notion of Christian charity.

3. Mad Cow Disease

Millions of European consumers may be at risk of catching Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), the fatal human version of BSE - despite their governments' assertions that their countries are free of the cattle disease, the European Union's most senior scientists warned in a report yesterday. Up to 400,000 people in some member states could be exposed to infected material from a single cow if it were allowed to enter the food chain because it had displayed no clinical signs of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
http://www.mad-cow.org/00/jan00_news_mid.html

Europe--if not the entire world--becomes obsessed with contaminated food, particularly when imported from other nations.

4. Rome Hosts World Pride 2000

Italian organizers of World Pride, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) festival scheduled to take place in Rome in July 2000, face a mounting campaign to close the event down. The Catholic Church and the extreme right, including Italy's powerful neo-fascist movement, are pressuring Italian authorities to deny or revoke permits for the event. Basic freedoms of expression and assembly are in danger.
http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/globalactionalerts/495.html

The clash between progressive and reactionary politics and the role of institutionalized religion becomes quite clear and provide an unsettling context for openly gay Giuliano in Big Love.

5. George W. Bush Elected U.S. President

During the George W. Bush administration, public opinion of America declined in most European countries. A Pew Global Attitudes Project poll shows "favorable opinions" of America between 2000 and 2006 dropping from 83% to 56% in the United Kingdom, from 62% to 39% in France, from 78% to 37% in Germany and from 50% to 23% in Spain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism

The zenith of the European notion of the "ugly American"... I experienced this first-hand three years ago in each city I visited in Italy, France, and England. Still, at midsummer 2000, when Big Love takes place, Bush had not been elected and this negative attitude was much, much lower. How this relates specifically, I don't know; however, I find it curious that the American author didn't make any of his tourist visitors American.

6. North vs. South

Italy has a diversified industrial economy, which is divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/IT.html

The economic gap between the rich industrialized north and the poor, more agrarian south has widened in recent years. Unemployment in the south as a whole has gone from 18.7 percent in 1993 to 21.4 percent in July 1996, while joblessness in northern Italy at midyear was only about 6.2 percent.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/15/world/north-south-divide-in-italy-a-problem-for-europe-too.html

The setting of our play is the coastline just south of Naples. Tourism is vital because the mountainous terrain cannot support significant agriculture. The region is demonstrably poorer with much of the population unemployed; perhaps this is why Giuliano continues to live at home (next door) and work for his uncle.

7. Italy's Out of Control Economy

Italy continues to grapple with budget deficits and high public debt--2.0% and 105.6% of GDP for 2007, respectively. Italy joined the European Monetary Union in 1998 by signing the Stability and Growth Pact, and as a condition of this Euro zone membership, Italy must keep its budget deficit beneath a 3% ceiling. In June 2006, the European Commission warned Italy it had to bring the deficit down to that level by 2007.

The Italian economy is also affected by a large underground economy--worth some 27% of Italy's GDP. This production is not subject, of course, to taxation and thus remains a source of lost revenue to the local and central government.
http://globaledge.msu.edu/countryInsights/economy.asp?countryID=59&regionID=2

Although we might like to think of the Mafia as a thing of the past or as restricted to the island of Sicily (where it originated), organized crime continues to control a huge percentage of the Italian economy.

8. Computers & Internet

Released on February 17, 2000…. Microsoft marketed Windows 2000 as the most secure Windows version ever but it became the target of a number of high-profile virus attacks such as Code Red and Nimda. Over nine years after its release, it continues to receive patches for security vulnerabilities nearly every month.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000

The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers. CIPA imposes certain types of requirements on any school or library that receives funding for Internet access or internal connections from the E-rate program – a program that makes certain communications technology more affordable for eligible schools and libraries. In early 2001, the FCC issued rules implementing CIPA. More recently, Congress enacted additional protections for children using the Internet.
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html

In his indictment against modern society, Constantine rails against the internet and its easy access to porn. In 2000, Windows 2000 was released but was immediately plagued by viruses; later that year, Congress passed CIPA to help shield youngsters from online porn.

9. Getting Married in Italy

Dreaming of a romantic seaside wedding in Italy? Get married on the Amalfi Coast, in the Southern Italian region of Campania, the most perfect and enchanting location for an outdoor seaside wedding in Italy.
http://www.weddingsontheamalficoast.com/

Italy does not have many requirements for getting married - even with short notice. As a result couples that want to travel to Italy for a destination wedding can do so with confidence and arrive only a few days before their wedding date.
http://www.italian-weddings.com/marriage_requirements_italy.html

If you are Catholic and want a Catholic wedding, however, the requirements are so numerous that I will just share a link (to the requirements page):
http://www.italian-weddings.com/marriage_requirements_italy/catholic_requirements.html

The Amalfi coast is a very popular place for foreigners as well as Italian couples to get married. (This coast includes our play's setting: Castellammare.) Although I doubt Mee had any plans on depicting a realistic wedding, I think the notion of the Greek couples sailing to Italy for a civil wedding is very plausible. (Most Greeks are Orthodox rather than Catholic and, therefore, would not have to meet the Catholic requirements.)

10. Wedding Cakes

The history of the nuptial pastry, though, is even stranger than these modern rituals suggests. In ancient Rome, marriages were sealed when the groom smashed a barley cake over the bride’s head. (Luckily, tiaras were not fashionable then.) In medieval England, newlyweds smooched over a pile of buns, supposedly ensuring a prosperous future. Unmarried guests sometimes took home a little piece of cake to tuck under their pillow.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2009/07/13/the-strange-history-of-the-wedding-cake/

Italian wedding cakes are very traditional and quite different from the elaborate American and British confections. The focus is on the finest ingredients elegantly prepared. The Millefoglie is an ever popular option: a crispy puff pastry base holds spongecake layers and further puff pastry held together by creamy chantilly and vanilla pastry cream. The result is an absolutely scrumptuous, crunchy, creamy and melt in your mouth concoction.

TORTA MIMOSA ALLA BAVARESE:
Sponge cake filled with Bavarian cream and vanilla.
CROSTATA DI FRUTTA:
Classic fruit tart with vanilla cream.
MILLE FOGLIE:
Puff pastry with Chantilly cream.
TORTA CHANTILLY:
Sponge cake, Chantilly cream, white chocolate shavings on top.
DIPLOMATICA:
Puff pastry base, sponge cake, vanilla cream or chantilly cream.
ST. HONORE':
Puff pastry, sponge cake, cream puffs and chantilly cream.
BIGNOLATA ALLA VANIGLIA:
Vanilla flavoured chantilly cream and cream puffs filled with whipped cream.
http://www.italian-weddings.com/wedding_services/wedding_cakes.html

In Mee's play, the collective wedding is comprised of three elements: music, processional, and wedding cake; there is no minister or civil servant to perform any ceremony. Thus, the cake itself is very important. I probably would have assumed that most wedding cakes (bride's) are pretty much the same. Not so.