What’s different in the new version of The Love of Three Oranges?

Now that the new version of The Love of Three Oranges is street legal, you may be wondering what the difference is between Oranges: Classic and Oranges: New Hotness.

To start with, I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret. There really isn’t any such thing as the “original version” of my Three Oranges. To start with, we changed some of the script during the rehearsal process so the show the actors read at auditions and the final show that we performed were both different. Secondly, between curtain call of our final show and when the book was published in 2002, I made some changes and tweaked some scenes that I never really felt worked as well as they should. So the version that has been for sale all these years wasn’t even truly Oranges: Classic as it had already been modified a few times.

That said, while the majority of the play is the same, there are some changes in the new edition that anyone who’s read a previous version will likely notice. Most of it is just smoothing out of dialog and other general writing tweaks but the most fundamental changes all come under the head of… sensibilities.

Carlo Gozzi wrote his commedia dell’arte scenerio for an audience of adults. Off-color humor was absolutely the order of the day. I wrote my play for an audience of college kids and the off-color stuff still fit right in.

Fast forward to 2002 when my Three Oranges is in print and is becoming increasingly popular with high schools who love the ensemble cast and historical teach-ability of the show but cringe at some of the off-color stuff. School boards, religious schools, PTA’s: this play has managed to tick all of them off over the last decade. I was repeatedly asked for a “school friendly” version of the show and that version was already in the works when Playscripts came into the picture. Rather then have two competing versions of the show out there, I decided to clean up what I could and then just write alternate cleaner scenes that groups could have upon request.

I want to say from the start that I didn’t want to change the spirit of the show and sanitize it beyond recognition and it truly hasn’t been. I refused to change more then I actually changed. But there were a few parts that needed a little tweaking and I think we achieved some fantastic compromises to keep both student and adult groups happy. 

What are the biggest changes?

• There’s an alternate version of the King and Pantelone’s double entendre speech available upon request but the dirty version remains in the script. (This was the #1 thing schools complained about.)
• I’ve long recommended a Twister game as an alternate for the keg stand scene and this is now an official alternate scene in the text.
• No one ever complained about this but it has long bothered me that, while this wasn’t my intention, I felt the Farfarello/Celio scene came off as homophobic. When I wrote it, I wrote it for a specific actor who could do a funny voice and as I watched high school kids do the show I realized that, on its own, there was an uncomfortable undercurrent to the scene that I didn’t care for. So, while the spirit of the scene is the same and I suppose an actor could play it the same, that scene has been reworked to remove any unintentional overtones. Trust me, the scene didn’t suffer for it. I actually think its much funnier the new way.
• Creonta was another sore spot for a lot of groups. When her minions abandon her, she curses God, doubts his existence and dares him to strike her dead to prove his existence (which he does). Schools had a real problem with this scene for a variety of religious reasons. I feel their pain. How do you think I felt when I sat in the audience and watched this scene with my priest (who knew perfectly well that I’d written it) in the audience? So I decided that the scene didn’t suffer at all if instead of “God” Creonta worshiped the dark gods of the occult. If you think about it, that way actually makes more sense anyway.
• One of the other top issues schools had was something that never, ever occurred to me when we were performing the show. Two of the three oranges die immediately after being rescued. We play this up for comedy but, if you stop and think about it, it’s really depressing. Schools took issue with this and I’ve seen several productions where they tried to add lines about them coming back to life in the end. Instead of trying to shoehorn their resurrection into the show in a scene of its own, I added two little subtle moments that, while not spelling it out, imply a happy ending for the other two oranges as well. I’m hoping its enough to give the audience some closure on that so it’s less of an issue.

What it comes down to is that, if you are very familiar with the show, you’ll notice some small changes. If you’ve never read it before, however, you’ll find the same wacky, naughty humor as before with some improvements and alternate versions where needed. I truly believe the version of the show available of Playscripts is the best version yet and my hope is that you’ll agree once you’ve read it.

The cook still cleans the ovens with her breasts. Deal with it. 😉