About the Play:

Winner of 1973 London Evening Standard Best Play of the Year Award

Saturday, Sunday, Monday is a full-length dramatic comedy by the great Italian playwright Eduardo de Filippo. Marital misunderstandings, a lover's quarrel, and generational conflict escalate as passions flare during the traditional Sunday dinner with family and friends. Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall adapt Eduardo de Filippo's sparkling contemporary Italian commedia dell'arte, which looks at the trial and tribulations of a well-off family in Naples.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday is the story of a quarrelsome middle-class Italian family – their lives, loves, and the cataclysmic events that happen over one ordinary weekend. Set in Naples in 1959, Saturday, we meet the extended family of demanding matriarch Mama Rosa and her blustering husband Peppino in Rosa's bustling Neapolitan kitchen and are introduced to the basic dramatic conflicts while the traditional Sunday meal is being prepared. Peppino suspects his wife Rosa is having an affair with their neighbour and she is brooding because he spurned her cooking and praised a meal prepared by his daughter in law. The character rich cast also includes a crusty grandfather, a formidable widowed aunt on the make for the family doctor, her introverted son and a "liberated" daughter in law. During the traditional Sunday dinner Peppino's and Rosa's tempers flare amidst a gathering of family and friends. Add to their feud generational conflicts, a lover's quarrel, humorous insights on maternal over-protection and bourgeois Italian life and the meal is unforgettable. Of course, all is forgiven by Monday.

This Italian family drama was originally written in 1959 and produced that same year in Rome as Sabato, domenica e lunedi. The first English production of this highly praised version by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall was at the National Theatre in London in 1973 with Joan Plowright and Laurence Olivier as part of an ensemble cast. It was voted the Best Play of the Year award by The London Evening Standard drama critics' poll and was hailed by the Daily Telegraph as a hilarious comedy "seething with life, rich and nutty as a fruitcake." Its North American premiere was in 1981 at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway in New York City. The play has been performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 7 female, 10 male

What people say:

"I liked the play this side of idolatry." — The New York Times

"The dialogue is funny, the pace is fast...Has got what it takes." — Women's Wear Daily

About the Playwright:

Eduardo de Filippo (1900-1984) was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet. Considered one of the great Italian playwrights, his unique contribution to international theatre is his love and understanding of Naples and its people, and his great gift for expressing these, both as playwright and actor. In 1981 he was made a life senator of the Italian Republic. When he died, he lay in state in the Roman Senate, and 30,000 people paid him homage. For the Italians he had achieved legendary status in his own lifetime.

Willis Edward Hall (1929-2005) was an English playwright and radio, television and film writer who drew on his working-class background for much of his writing. He formed an extremely prolific partnership with his life-long friend Keith Waterhouse producing over 250 works.

Keith Waterhouse (1929-2009) was a prominent British playwright, novelist, and journalist, known for his famous creative collaboration with fellow writer Willis Hall, with whom he formed a dynamic partnership often referred to as "the Writing Factory."