Summer Holiday Fever

“The world is the book from which I have learned the most,” wrote Carlo Goldoni, one of the greatest masters of Italian drama. In his work, this world sparkles and surges with extraordinary force through people, their conversations and everyday situations. Creating simple, truthful, convincing and easily understood stories, Goldoni portrays human relationships from within, revealing their every shade and turning them into a metaphor for the world itself. In the eighteenth century, clouded by uncertain prospects for the future and steeped in inexplicable cruelty, when there was a sense that Europe would soon undergo a turning point that would permanently change the face of society, Goldoni remains profoundly humane, able to envelop people in love and warmth even as he sharply criticises them. In his work, the playwright surpassed his own time: he grasped the condition of modern humanity and the concerns that plague it, and highlighted the importance of women who questioned their entrenched traditional role in society. His artistry is especially evident in the magnificent “Holiday Trilogy,” comprising three plays: “Summer Holiday Fever,” “Summer Holiday Adventures” and “Coming Back from the Summer Holiday.” This autumn, director Gabrielė Tuminaitė will present the first part of the trilogy, “Summer Holiday Fever,” at Vilniaus mažasis teatras. Livorno. The characters are frantically preparing to leave for summer holidays at country villas. At the forefront is Leonardo’s jealousy of his fiancée, Giacinta, who is also being courted by the young Guglielmo. In their desperate rush, they disregard both financial and moral limits, consumed by vanity. They hope that once they leave for the villas, that magical “somewhere else,” they will fulfil themselves as people and the problems they are running from will resolve themselves. But it soon becomes clear that the problem lies much deeper: they are entirely unable to manage their lives, which are hurtling at full speed towards the abyss. As the characters lurch constantly between anxiety, jealousy, outbursts of anger and irritation, the pace of the play keeps accelerating, its momentum building to madness. As if possessed by this mass evacuation, they leave their own homes—their theatre—littered, ransacked and ravaged, and hurry elsewhere, to a place “where things are better,” hoping to become what they have been promised they can be: more talented, more beautiful and more widely acclaimed.