Bamboozled!

This excellently crafted play features many of the traditional commedia dell'arte characters in a lightning-speed plot with more twists than a corkscrew. It is a faithful commedia farce with knockabout physical and verbal delights, accompanied by as many and varied sound effects devices as can be dreamed up. Brighella, a young opportunist, spies old, miserly Pantalone chasing Harlequin, a dolt. Brighella threatens to throttle him, quickly distracting Pantalone as he thinks up a plot to earn a bit of bribery income in a very short amount of time. First, he convinces Pantalone that he's killed Harlequin and collects a handsome sum to do away with the body. Meanwhile, sweet, beautiful Columbine is heartsick at the prospect of being married off to Pantalone. Brighella convinces Harlequin to stand in for young Columbine in a fake wedding with Pantalone. This promises to produce a large dowry from Columbine's ward, presumably to be split between Brighella and Harlequin, while freeing Columbine to run off with her love, Leandro. But Pantalone is privy to this plan and concocts one to out-bamboozle the two of them. The wedding occurs, and identities are well concealed. Not even the audience knows the true bamboozler until the bamboozling end.