It’s hard to say exactly what draws me to adaptation. Most of the time, I like something in it but hate the rest of it and I end up adapting it to “fix” whatever’s annoying me about the original. But every now and then, I read a story that just makes me say aloud, “This is just so terrible, I HAVE to adapt it.”
The Goose is not the most ridiculous story from Giambattista Basile’s Tale of Tales, that honor belongs to the glorious-ness that is The Cockroach, the Mouse, and the Cricket which I’ll also be adapting in a slightly different form, but it’s up there. It’s about a goose who poops gold (Yeah, you read that right. Laying golden eggs is MUCH too classy for these fairy tales!) and then trying to bite a prince’s ass off as revenge for the prince trying to use it as toilet paper. When I read this magnificent work of literature, I just knew I had to make it mine.
To that end (the puns, they write themselves!), I present the first of my Tale of Tale adaptations plays… Goosed!
Goosed! by Hillary DePiano
Kindness is as good as gold in this modern adaptation of Giambattista Basile’s The Goose. When two poor sisters use what little money they have to save a strange goose from the butcher, the goose is so grateful it produces them piles of gold coins. But when their greedy neighbors want the treasure for themselves, they discover that this goose isn’t so easily cooked. From a blood thirsty fowl with golden stool to a careless prince who gets it in the end, soon everyone in this weird fairy tale is feeling the pinch. With a large cast, majority female roles, lots of physical comedy and room for improvisation, Goosed is a new play in the style of classic Italian slapstick comedy that’s a literal butt-load of fun for all ages to watch and perform.
- Comedy / Fantasy
- One Act
- 35-40 minutes
- 6F 1M 5E
- Cast size: 10-unlimited
This play is available for productions but unpublished. Members of the New Play Exchange can read it in its entirety for free here. Everyone else, please email me directly for a perusal copy.
Features
- Flexible/simple staging
- Large cast with majority female and gender neutral roles and an ensemble that can increase or decrease based on your casting needs.
- Opportunities for physical comedy, improvisation and puppets.
It’s a pretty faithful adaptation. I used all the original character names and the things I did change are small (such as the villains being a mother and her daughters instead of random cousins) but I think it has the potential to be a real crowd pleaser. And while there are no masks or stock characters, you could certainly call it commedia-esque. I’ll be sending out an email to my mailing list to offer the world premiere soon (I’m close to finishing another play and I’m waiting until that one’s done so I can offer both in the same email) but if you’d like an advance look at it, please let me know.
Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
