14th-Century Tales Help Illuminate Life Today

McLean Playwright Wants to Bring Italian Writer to Modern Audiences

What could an Italian writer spinning tales in 1350 possibly have to say to a contemporary U.S. audience?

Plenty, or so thinks McLean playwright Rachel Bail, who describes the work of Giovanni Boccaccio as timeless. That theory will be put to the test this weekend at McLean's Alden Theatre when Bail's stage adaptation of six of Boccaccio's short stories will be performed by McLean Drama Company under the title "Decameron Revisited."

"Boccaccio was really one of Italy's greatest writers, and we can even compare him to Shakespeare in the way he sought out material from other sources and made it his own," Bail said. "What we can discover through his work is that human nature is pretty much the same from the 14th century to today."

Bail revisits "Decameron," a collection of stories by Boccaccio, who took the Florentine dialect of Latin and turned it into Italian for prose, following Dante's example. Boccaccio's work was considered controversial, even immoral, at the time. That image has persisted for more than six centuries, even though the sexual innuendo in his work is obscured by metaphor.

The structure is simple. Over 10 days, 10 characters, huddled together in a country estate to avoid a plague, entertain themselves by telling 100 stories. The title refers to the 10 days of effort. The stories are, at first impression, entertaining tales that are alternately ribald and very funny. Yet Boccaccio found a way to embed a moral into each tale.

Bail, a longtime journalist who lived in Rome for two years, chose six of the stories and adapted them for the stage. Inspired by visits to places in Italy where Boccaccio wrote, she made it her mission to make him more familiar to U.S. audiences, work that intensified when she retired from the Voice of America in 2001 to write plays full time.

"I do read Italian, but I worked from an English translation," Bail said, adding that the project took many years. During that time, she wrote other plays, three of which have been performed by McLean Drama Company.

Directed by Bail's longtime literary collaborator Keith Donaldson, "The Decameron Revisited" will feature a stark scenic design. The actors will wear contemporary clothing, except for period hats or crowns to help delineate their social status, and the language is colloquial English. Music, for which Bail wrote lyrics, will be performed by the cast acting as a chorus and accompanied by guitar in the brief interludes between each tale.

Set in a variety of locales, including Babylon, Cyprus and Spain, the stories highlight various tribulations, such as women coping with the loss of their social position and the demands of great beauty. In one, a young man has misadventures on a long journey to buy horses; in another, a Jewish character named Melchizedek offers advice to the Muslim conqueror Saladin. One tale involves the conversion of a Muslim girl to Christianity; in another, an ugly man makes a fool of himself over a beautiful woman.

With six stories to tell in a production expected to run about 75 minutes, the actors face some stiff challenges.

"It's really hard to develop a character in that little amount of time," said actor Lanny Slusher, who plays four roles. "You have to go onstage and nail it right away. That's what makes it scary, because you don't know if you're going to or not.

"Some of my characters are a little more over the top than what the other actors might do because I want to make sure the people know that there's a distinction between each one when I come onstage. I've developed different voices and accents and postures for each one."

Because of some sexual innuendo in the dialogue and what she calls "simulated nudity" behind a scrim, Bail recommends that audience members younger than 18 be accompanied by adults.

"Decameron Revisited" will be performed by McLean Drama Company at the Alden Theatre of McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Ave. Showtime is 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday and 2:3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are available at the box office and at 703-573-7328.