OBLIVION - SHAKESPEARE IN 8 MINUTES

Even Italian parody musical troupe Oblivion has hopped on the Bard's 4th Centennial bandwagon.
And the result is both redoubtable and hilarious, like any other Oblivion affectionate parody musical.
From Romeo drinking strychnine, to Desdemona stifled by her husband, to Lady M. washing the indelible bloodstains off her hands, to yandere Ophelia plunging into the lake, to Julius Caesar stabbed by the Senate XXIII times, to Cleopatra putting a sacred cobra to her --ehm-- bosom... Oblivion has served us the highlights of Shakespearean tragedy, brilliantly and tongue firmly in cheek as always, on a platinum platter:

OBLIVION 4: INFERNO

"Inferno" means "hell" in Italian. Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Part One of a trilogy titled The Divine Comedy, details the author's descent to Hell in company of his favourite poet Virgil. They are headed for Paradise, where Dante is due to encounter his late girlfriend Beatrice.
Like The Fiancés, The Divine Comedy is read and discussed by Italian high-school students, and thus a staple of the national literary canon. Renzo and Lucia are as well-known as Paolo and Francesca, or Count Ugolino (some of the damned that Dante and Virgil encounter in Hell).
Oblivion's rendition of Inferno opens to the tune of "Old Macdonald had a Farm", but its mood darkens and lightens gradually:


All of Oblivion's sung literary parodies are awesome retellings of the original works that they are based on!

OBLIVION 3: PINOCCHIO

This naughty puppet "wood", unlike The Fiancés (see the former post), become an international celebrity, appearing more than once on the silver screen.
Oblivion's Pinocchio, its anti-hero played by a girl, sums pretty much up the famous literary fairy tale: both Geppetto and Jiminy Cricket are there, and so are Stromboli, the Fox and Cat, the Blue Fairy, and Lampwick. There is the same touch of humour that permeates Oblivion's renditions of Othello and The Fiancés (the Blue Fairy, for example, refers to Pinocchio's proverbial nose growth as "erections"!):

OBLIVION 2: THE FIANCÉS

After doing Othello, Oblivion parodied The Fiancés. This novel, written by one Alessandro Manzoni, a contemporary of Verdi's, is considered a flagship of Italian Romanticism and mandatory study book for high-school students. Every Italian teenager knows I Promessi Sposi (that's the original title), and nine out of ten consider it a tedious book (the baroque style and the many digressions recall Hugo's Les Misérables).
Set against the backdrop of rural Lombardy during the Thirty Years' War, the novel is basically the story of two young peasants, Renzo and Lucia (both conveniently orphaned, beautiful and innocent), whose engagement is interrupted by thugs at the service of local squire Don Rodrigo, since he is passionately in love with Lucia. And thus, our hero and heroine are separated, encountering during their travels:
- A nun with a dark past, dark secrets and a darker future (Lucia).
- An innkeeper who acts as deviously as Monsieur Thénardier (Renzo). (NOT APPEARING IN THE PARODY)
- A sadistic and troubled aristocrat, obviously a dead ringer for Edward Rochester minus mad wife in the attic (Lucia).
- Revolutions led by poor young peasants and craftspeople against a corrupt governor (Renzo).
- A mismatched posh husband and wife couple: he's an eccentric scientist, while she's a hypocritical noblewoman who behaves like Madame Thénardier (Lucia). (NOT APPEARING IN THE PARODY)

Finally, all of the cast is reunited at the same hospital, due to a plague epidemic carried by German mercenaries. The bad guys die (they deserved such a fate), while Renzo and Lucia survive to marry and live happily ever after.

And here's Oblivion's rendition of The Fiancés:

OBLIVION 1: OTHELLO

This Italian comedy group called Oblivion is most famous for its literary adaptations, told entirely with song parodies (mostly of Italian songs, though you may recognize some by composers and lyricists of other nations).
So, I've decided to share them with you.
 Oblivion's first such play was a half-hour rendition of Othello (though drawing more upon Verdi's 1880s opera than upon Shakespeare's Stuart-era tragedy). It is not only a work of fine art, but also a real "popera", and the longest of their literary-musical travesties: