Italian American Reconciliation
Sheet Music

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SKU: HU.9780822205791

Play, Plays. Softcover Book. Hal Leonard Australia #9780822205791. Published by Hal Leonard Australia (HU.9780822205791).

ISBN D0822205793. 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.1 inches.

THE STORY: Huey Maximilian Bonfigliano has a problem: While he is safely divorced from his shrewish first wife, Janice, who shot his dog and even took a bead on him, he feels he cannot regain his "manhood" until he woos and wins her one more time - if only to put his broken marriage behind him once and for all. He enlists the aid of his lifelong buddy, Aldo Scalicki, a confirmed bachelor who tries, without apparent success, to convince Huey that he would be better off sticking with his new lady friend, Teresa, a usually placid young waitress whose indignation flares when she learns what Huey is up to. In a moonlit balcony scene (hilariously reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac) Aldo pleads his lovesick friend's case and, to his astonishment, Janice capitulates - although not for long. However we do learn that her earlier abuse of Huey was intended to make him "act like a man" which, at last, he does. And, more than that, he (and the audience) become aware that, in the final essence, "the greatest - and only - success is to be able to love" - a truth which emerges delightfully from the heartwarming, wonderfully antic and always imaginatively conceived action of the play.

A fanciful, lighthearted and zestfully comic exploration of male/female relationships, and the sometimes unsettling (and very funny) complications that can ensue. An award-winning success in its initial production in Los Angeles, the play was subsequently presented by New York's famed Manhattan Theatre Club as well. "He writes wonderful Runyonesque dialogue - a sort of gritty, downtown version of sparkling drawing-room comedy - and highly rhetorical speeches that are fun to hear, because actors love to perform them." - The New Yorker. "Ultimately Shanley is telling us a tall tale but he does it with so much humor, so much winsome charm that it is almost irresistible." - NY Daily News. "bathed in the same moonlit madness that gave his Moonstruck screenplay its savor and flavorA lovely play." - NY Post.