''The Open Couple'' (
Italian title: ''Coppia aperta, quasi spalancata'') is a play by
Dario Fo
Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...
. As with some of Fo's other plays, it is a
romantic play which was written with his wife
Franca Rame. It was written in 1983.
The Italian censors restricted it to audiences over the age of 18 when Rame included as a prologue her monologue ''The Rape'' (inspired by her own rape).
[Mitchell 1999, pp. 176–177]
Plot summary
In this farce about sexual politics in marriage, a man persuades his
suicidal wife that an open
marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
is politically correct and embarks on dalliances with younger women, to her dismay and fury. After deciding to be on her own, the tables are turned when she confesses to a new man,
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
nominated professor and inspired singer-songwriter; it is the husband who becomes suicidal.
Cast
* Dario Fo (Husband)
* Franca Rame (Wife)
Further reading
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Open Couple, The
1983 plays
Plays by Dario Fo
Romance