THE KING STAG  

Book by Carlo Gozzi 

Directed by DC Wright & Hadley Kamminga-Peck  

April 3 – 6 at 7:30pm & April 7 at 2:00pm

Hainline Theatre

About the play:  Deramo, kind but simple-hearted king of Serendippe, wishes to marry. There is a problem: how to find out which of the contenders for his love is genuine and which is simply eyeing the royal throne. The wizard Durandarte gives the king a figure of a clown who laughs if someone utters an untruth. The clown appears similar to the favorite of the king, the crafty and mean first minister Tartaglia, who for a long time and unrequitedly was in love with Angela, the daughter of the second minister, Pantalone, a timid bureaucrat. But Angela loves Deramo, though she will not be his bride, considering marriage unnecessary and humiliating. Tartaglia hatches intrigues and in every possible way interferes with his daughter Clarice marrying young, handsome chamberlain Leandra, Angela's brother, expecting to give the hand of his daughter to the king. Despite all the tricks of the first minister, the king, by the audacity and sharpness of Angela, manages to discern her true love for him, falls in love with her and declares her his wife. Tartaglia is, however, unrelenting: while hunting, he learns from a friend the spell of Durandarte and swaps bodies with him. Deramo becomes a stag, then an old man, in his quest to return to his love Angela.