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Enchanted April
A play adapted from the novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. When two frustrated London housewives decide to rent a villa in Italy for a holiday away from their bleak marriages, they recruit two very different English women to share the cost and the experience. There, among the wisteria blossoms and Mediterranean sunshine, all four bloom again rediscovering themselves in ways that they and we could never have expected.
72 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 2004
155 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Barber
32Ìýbooks2ÌýfollowersMatthew Barber was born in Los Angeles and is a UCLA graduate. His stage play Enchanted April premiered in 2000 at Hartford Stage and opened on Broadway in 2003, garnering the John Gassner Award for Outstanding New American Play and Drama League and Tony Award nominations for Best Play. With more than 500 international productions to date, Enchanted April has become one of the most produced plays of the past decade. Current work includes the stage play Fireflies, which premiered in 2017 at Long Wharf Theatre (Edgerton Foundation New Play Award), and two screenplays â€� the original historical drama Independence, and a film adaptation of his stage play Enchanted April. Work in development includes the stage plays The Forces and Dark Age, and a musical stage adaptation of Enchanted April (with actor/composer Bruce Dow). Matthew has been a participating playwright in Broadway’s 24 Hour Plays event to benefit Urban Playground, is the recipient of Wurlitzer Foundation and Art OMI fellowships, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 9, 2022
I thought I had requested the Elizabeth von Arnim novel from the library but received the play instead. The play was fine. I assume it distills the important events of novel. I did appreciate the enchantment of the Italian villa and am still interested in reading the novel.
August 26, 2024
Beautiful play. Some key elements of the novel are of course inevitably missing, but the spirit is there. Would love to stage this.
February 11, 2025
Cheating husbands get no pass from me.
November 3, 2022
This is, remarkably, the very first play by Matthew Barber, and it is deftly and beautifully written. Barber, who has based his script on the same 1922 novel that inspired the famous film, gets right to the point in his taut dramatization, having his central character, Lotty Wilton, recount for us a story she once heard. It seems that an old man has decided that he wants an acacia tree, and so he plants his walking stick in the ground as a reminder. He returns to the spot some time later, and it seems that the stick has taken root; a blossom is at its base--an acacia. It's a charming and apt parable, for Enchanted April is about planting sticks in the earth we trod everyday, and willing them to bloom.
The time is February 1922, memories of the terrible first World War still fresh in everybody's mind; the place is damp, dour, dismal London. Lotty, the dutiful unhappy wife of a solicitor named Mellersh Wilton, happens upon an advertisement in the Times for a castle on the Italian Riviera, available to let during the month of April. The promise of wisteria, sunshine, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean awakens something in Lotty, and she bolsters up her courage and approaches Rose Arnott, whom she does not know, though she has seen her at church (and who reminds her of "a disappointed Madonna"). Lotty soon convinces the wary Rose that they should go on holiday to this castle at Mezzago. Both women, for different reasons, are stuck in marital ruts; the change of air and scenery, absent their husbands, betokens rejuvenation and a kind of independence neither has known.
The rental on the Italian castle is £60, so Lotty and Rose decide to advertise themselves for two more tenants. The only responses come from Lady Caroline Bramble, a bored, beautiful and rich young socialite; and Mrs. Graves, an imperious old widow whose father, as she never tires of telling people, knew Tennyson. This unlikely foursome, against the odds to be sure, decide to take the plunge together, and as Enchanted April's first act ends, they are on their way to adventure in Italia.
The time is February 1922, memories of the terrible first World War still fresh in everybody's mind; the place is damp, dour, dismal London. Lotty, the dutiful unhappy wife of a solicitor named Mellersh Wilton, happens upon an advertisement in the Times for a castle on the Italian Riviera, available to let during the month of April. The promise of wisteria, sunshine, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean awakens something in Lotty, and she bolsters up her courage and approaches Rose Arnott, whom she does not know, though she has seen her at church (and who reminds her of "a disappointed Madonna"). Lotty soon convinces the wary Rose that they should go on holiday to this castle at Mezzago. Both women, for different reasons, are stuck in marital ruts; the change of air and scenery, absent their husbands, betokens rejuvenation and a kind of independence neither has known.
The rental on the Italian castle is £60, so Lotty and Rose decide to advertise themselves for two more tenants. The only responses come from Lady Caroline Bramble, a bored, beautiful and rich young socialite; and Mrs. Graves, an imperious old widow whose father, as she never tires of telling people, knew Tennyson. This unlikely foursome, against the odds to be sure, decide to take the plunge together, and as Enchanted April's first act ends, they are on their way to adventure in Italia.
And in Act Two, they have their adventure--all of them, along with Messrs. Arnott and Wilton and a young man named Antony Wilding who is the owner of the castle and winds up spending time with the ladies on an unplanned detour from Rome. But their enchanted April is no simple makeover; what they experience--thanks to Lotty's bravery and willingness to open herself up to something new and vital and unexpected--is authentic renewal. Each of these seven people is sad and stunted when we first meet them, for various and different reasons. But once they allow the sun and sea and wisteria to enlarge their perspective on the world, they blossom.
September 12, 2022
One of my favorite plays of all time. Barber is witty and does an excellent job at taking a cerebral book and translating it to dialogue that creates interesting relationships. I will love Enchanted April always.
August 12, 2019
Lovely play about forgiveness and beginning again.
This is a re-read - read this work around 11-12 years ago. Still love it.
This is a re-read - read this work around 11-12 years ago. Still love it.
August 18, 2023
Underwhelming
September 14, 2015
Such a charming story that I really did enjoy. However, I read this play specifically as part of a Play Selection Committee for local community theatre and so this review will be mostly in regards to that.
I think this would be a great play to do. The cast is not large, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get it cast. There are only 3 men, which makes it even easier. It is a story that could appeal to all ages, so that makes it great for community theaters and getting a good audience. I had never heard of it before, personally, so the only worry with audiences is if it is not very well known, people aren't always willing to branch out and try a new play. That being said, the only worry I really have is the intricacy of the sets. There are so many scenes that take place in different locations including four different English sitting rooms, and Italian villa, and a church. The scenery would have to be very minimal, but specific in order to differentiate the spaces without having exceedingly long scene changes. All in all, I think we should do it.
On a side note, it does bother me that the Rose/Caroline/Frederick triangle is never solved. It is introduced and then never referred to again. However, it has made me curious to read the novel from which this play was adapted.
I think this would be a great play to do. The cast is not large, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get it cast. There are only 3 men, which makes it even easier. It is a story that could appeal to all ages, so that makes it great for community theaters and getting a good audience. I had never heard of it before, personally, so the only worry with audiences is if it is not very well known, people aren't always willing to branch out and try a new play. That being said, the only worry I really have is the intricacy of the sets. There are so many scenes that take place in different locations including four different English sitting rooms, and Italian villa, and a church. The scenery would have to be very minimal, but specific in order to differentiate the spaces without having exceedingly long scene changes. All in all, I think we should do it.
On a side note, it does bother me that the Rose/Caroline/Frederick triangle is never solved. It is introduced and then never referred to again. However, it has made me curious to read the novel from which this play was adapted.
September 19, 2016
Like the film, Enchanted April, the play, is delightful, and just a little magical. Four women, stuck in their lives for various reasons in the 1920's end up taking a holiday together for the month of April in a castle in Italy. Their lives are forever changed... for the better, and all it took was some warm weather, some time away from men, and a shared love of wisteria. Elizabeth von Arnim's book was a bestseller in 1922, and the 1992 film starring Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright, among others, was an indie, crowd-pleaser in the Downton Abbey vein.
The play keeps the lovely, magical sense of wonder and revelation, and can't help but make the reader smile even when forced into the most contrived circumstances. Matthew Barber's speeds along beautifully and offers a nice contrast between the humdrum British day-to-day lives of these ladies, and the exotic, free-spirited holiday in Italy.
The play keeps the lovely, magical sense of wonder and revelation, and can't help but make the reader smile even when forced into the most contrived circumstances. Matthew Barber's speeds along beautifully and offers a nice contrast between the humdrum British day-to-day lives of these ladies, and the exotic, free-spirited holiday in Italy.
November 3, 2013
This play was delightful to read and I preferred this adaptation to the original novel. By comparison, the male characters are less awful, which allows me to maintain my affection for the women who stay with them.
August 2, 2014
I loved the movie - one of my all-time favorites. The book was not as "enchanting". Read it, though, just days after being on the Italian Mediterranean coast near Genoa - probably very close to where the book was set, so that was fun.
September 29, 2009
Delightfully hopeful and sweet. Who doesn't need a holiday in Tuscany, after all?
July 3, 2010
I am directing this production in 2011. Much better than the movie or even the original book! Delightful characters.
November 4, 2013
Pleasant reading. I shall try out for the Mrs. Graves part mid-Novoember.
July 2, 2016
I found it enjoyable. I had seen the movie adaptation and was enchanted by it - to be precious. I am not satisfied with the ending and do wish it wasn't quite so neatly tied up with a bow.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
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