Eugène Labiche
The Italian Straw Hat
Paris, mid-19th century. Fadinard, a well-to-do and desired bachelor is about to get married with Hélène Nonancourt, daughter of a suburban market-gardener.
The bride is on her way. Unfortunately, Fadinard’s horse has eaten a fashionable lady’s straw hat, hanging on a bush. The straw hat belongs to Anaida, a young married woman who was hiding behind the bush with her lover Émile. Anaida, eager to preserve her good reputation, demands her straw hat back, saying that her husband is very jealous. When Fadinard embarks on the straw hat mission, Hélène arrives with her wedding-party. Trying to locate the straw hat, Fadinard encounters many problems.
Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie, 1851
Comedy
Performance length is 1 hour and 10 minutes and has no pause.
Creators
Translator and dramaturg
Eva Mahkovic
Director and set designer
Diego de Brea
Costume designer
Leo Kulaš
Language consultant
Barbara Rogelj
Lighting designer
Andrej Koležnik
Sound designer
Sašo Dragaš
Actors
Fadinard
Jaka Lah
Hélène
Jana Zupančič
Clara
Viktorija Bencik Emeršič
Lena Hribar Škrlec
Baroness de Champigny
Judita Zidar
Ahil de Rosalba
Mario Dragojević k. g.
Virginia
Klara Kuk k. g.
In this play, Labiche joined two of the most popular stage genres of the 19th century French theatre: vaudville and a well-made play.
Eugène Labiche (1815–1888) was a French playwright, mainly known for vaudeville-comedy style. The Italian Straw Hat is probably his best-known play, written in cooperation with Marc-Michel, a poet and a playwright. In this play, Labiche joined two of the most popular stage genres of the 19th century French theatre: vaudville and a well-made play. In 170 years since it was written, The Italian Straw Hat has often been adapted for stage and film. With a messy, seeking and furtive main character in his prime (in spite of the comic genre, some reviewers claim that the play in Labiche’s oeuvre is in fact the author’s Hamlet) and other protagonists that belong to all social classes, the play paints a microcosmos of the French society in the period of the Second Empire.
At the Ljubljana City Theatre, the adaptation will be put on stage by Diego de Brea, a master of aesthetically stylised comedy, who directed Stefan Zweig’s adaptation of Ben Johnson’s Volpone in the season 2019/2020.
Award
Tjaša Železnik
Dnevnik Award 2021 for outstanding artistic achievement in Ljubljana City Theatre in the previous season for the role of Martha in the production of That Face by Polly Stenham and for the role of Anaida in the production of The Italian Straw Hat by Eugène Labiche.
Program
