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Details for The Madness of Isabella
La pazzia d’Isabella
Very Brief Synopsis
This dark play is about a woman who gives up everything for love and goes mad when she seems to lose that love.
Number of players
Total Main Characters: 12
Men: 8
Women: 4
plus extras
Additional Notes
- This is loosely based on the Greek Tragedy Medea.
- This is probably the most famous of Scala’s scenarios, but it is dark, and can be a challenge to play entertainingly. For an amazingly deep actress this is a great vehicle.
- Like Play 36, this play involves a woman pressured to convert from Islam to Catholicism. This plot point cannot easily be removed from the play, as this pressure is one of the keys driving her to madness.
- This play has a stabbing scene, and Scala calls for bladders of blood. There is also a dumping of a chamber pot on Spavento scene. Both will require cleanup and present some safety concerns until the cleanup happens.
- Late in Act three Isabella has a lot of nonsense to spew in several separate scenes. This will take someone some time to compose, or for the actor playing Isabella to get good at doing it spontaneously. Either path will take some time and effort.
- Arlecchino has very few plot points written in the play, though his physical comedy must have been important in this mostly sad play.
