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. By creating simple, genuine, convincing and accessible stories, Goldoni portrays human relationships from within, unfolding them in all their shades and turning them into a metaphor for the world itself. In the 18th century, clouded by uncertain prospects for the future and steeped in inexplicable cruelty, when there was a sense that Europe would soon experience a turning point that would change the face of society forever, Goldoni remained profoundly humane, able to envelop people in love and warmth even as he fiercely criticised them. In work that transcended its time, the playwright captured the condition of modern people and the concerns that trouble them, and highlighted the importance of women who questioned their entrenched traditional role in society. His mastery is wonderfully revealed in the magnificent “Summer Trilogy”, comprising three plays: “Summer Holiday Fever”, “Summer Holiday Adventures” and “Returning from the Summer Holiday”. This autumn, director Gabrielė Tuminaitė will present the trilogy’s first part, “Summer Holiday Fever”, at Valstybinis Vilniaus mažasis teatras. Livorno. The characters are feverishly preparing to leave for their summer holidays in country villas. At the centre is Leonardo’s jealousy of his fiancée Giacinta, who is also being courted by the young Guglielmo. In their desperate haste, they disregard both financial and moral rules, consumed by vanity. They hope that, once they leave for the villas—that magical “elsewhere”—they will fulfil themselves as people and the problems they are fleeing will simply resolve themselves. But it soon becomes clear that the problem lies much deeper: in their complete inability to manage their lives, which are hurtling at full speed towards an abyss. As the characters constantly swing between anxiety, jealousy, outbursts of anger and irritation, the pace of the play keeps accelerating and the action spirals towards madness. As if possessed by this mass evacuation, they leave their own homes—their theatre—littered, ransacked and devastated, and rush elsewhere, where things are “better”, hoping to become what they have been promised they can be: more talented, more beautiful and more widely recognised.