Customer Reviews

Goldoni Vol. 1

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First of all, the book is ugly and badly made. Only the cover looks good; the text is in an ugly font and is poorly arranged for reading, with skinny little margins and those obnoxious all-caps character headings on the dialogue.

As for the text itself, comparing the Italian to this English text brings out many disappointing errors and discrepancies. I hate it when a translator silently substitutes his own ideas for those of the author! The task of a translator is to render the original, not to rewrite it.

And finally, the text suffers from translation-ese--that strange, stiff, bloodless, academic language that renders so many translated works unenjoyable, if not unendurable. Take just the first line: "Between you and me there yawns a considerable social gulf." Is it possible to imagine a live human being saying such a thing?

If you're looking for a quick, lively, readable, playable and above all funny translation, contact Michigan Classical Repertory Theatre at mcrt.org and get a copy of theirs. It's probably the best one out there.

Carlo Goldoni has written some of the most barbed comic plays on record. In THE VENETIAN TWINS, one brother shrugs his shoulders when his twin dies. In this play, MIRANDOLINA, a mistress of an inn toys with the affections of three noblemen who are staying there as well as of her manservant. The noblemen are drawn in broad brush strokes: one is a proud miser (the marquis); another, a brash money-solves-everything type (the count); the third, a self professed woman-hater (the baron). The main action of the play is how the woman, Mirandolina, chips away at the baron's misogyny while the marquis and the count vent their envy. Things get too hot, however, and Mirandolina has to make a choice. But I won't give away the ending. Sorry.

Goldoni's plays are artfully written and look as if they would play well on the stage. It is said that Goldoni's main contribution is putting words in the mouth of the pantomime commedia dell'arte characters. When one does that, however, and still retains the commedia conventions, the result can come across as nasty and cold.