Geoffrey Chaucer & Company Presents
 Clerk’s & Merchant’s Tales
7 actors – approx. 2 hours
Two tales that show very different views of marriage. In a poignant and heart-rending drama, the Clerk’s patient and faithful Griselda is swept into a marriage of anguished love by a powerful Marquis who goes to cruel extremes in his compulsion to test his young wife’s commitment to him. At the opposite end of the faithfulness scale, the Merchant’s Tale is Chaucer’s bawdiest tale of all, with an old and lusty knight, his pretty but faithless young wife, and his clever, young, love-sick squire. The knight takes a young wife who has no interest in requiting his amorous advances. When she is approached by the squire she finds a place in her heart for him, though opportunities to advance the relationship are few with her very jealous husband monitoring her every move. When her old husband goes blind, at least temporarily, the young lovers’ clever tricks and resourcefulness lead
3to a most outrageous liaison in a pear tree.
|
