The Italian Straw Hat (play)

The Italian Straw Hat (French: Un chapeau de paille d'Italie) is a five-act comedy by Eugene Labiche and Marc-Michel. It premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on 14 August 1851. It was cited by the philosopher Henri Bergson in Le Rire as an example of the "snowball" effect.

Plot

On the morning of Fadinard's (Pierre-Alfred Ravel) wedding day, his horse eats a straw hat belonging to Anaïs (Berger), while she is hidden behind a bush talking with her lover (Valaire). The couple follow him to his house and refuse to leave it until Fadinard replaces the hat with an identical one, since Anaïs's husband (Lhéritier) is jealous and astonished by the hat's disappearance.

Saying nothing to his fiancee (Marie-Mathilde Chauvière), who keeps following him, Fadinard leaves to look for an identical hat – seemingly a simple task at first, but which soon becomes harder and harder. His quest first takes him to a milliner (Cécile Azimont), then to a baroness (Pauline), and then to a bachelor (Jules Lacourière); on each occasion, his fiancee arrives hot on his heels, dazed and clumsy and invariably getting them both into trouble. The denouement finally occurs in the street outside Fadinard's house.

Adaptations

The play was first adapted to film in French by an unknown director in 1910 as Un chapeau de paille, and then again as Un chapeau de paille d'Italie in 1928, written and directed by René Clair in his feature debut and starring Albert Préjean.

The play was then adapted to the American stage as Horse Eats Hat by Edwin Denby and Orson Welles, and was directed by Welles himself at the Maxine Elliott Theatre, in 1936. Produced with the assistance of the Federal Theatre Project (a New Deal project), its principal cast was Joseph Cotten, Edgerton Paul (alternating with Welles), Bil Baird, Arlene Francis, George Duthie, Donald MacMillian, Dana Stevens, Sidney Smith, Harry McKee, France Bendtsen, Virginia Welles, Paula Laurence, Sarah Burton, and Henriette Kaye.

A German film adaptation, Der Florentiner Hut, was directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner in 1939, and starred Heinz Rühmann. Another French version followed in 1941, entitled Un chapeau de paille d'Italie, directed by Maurice Cammage and starring Fernandel as Fadinard. It was adapted by Nino Rota (music) and Ernesta Rinaldi (book) as the musical Il cappello di paglia di Firenze, premiered at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo on 21 April 1955. The final film adaptation to date was in 1974, The Straw Hat (Соломенная шляпка), directed by Leonid Kvinikhidze and starring Andrei Mironov.

References

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