Fools

A comic fable, Fools features a Ukrainian village, Kulyenchikov, that for 200 years has been cursed with stupidity. Like most folk-tale curses, this one can be lifted by the marriage of a young townswoman to the local count, or by the intervention of a hero who has 24 hours to successfully educate the same young woman. In this story, the hero’s name is Leon and the young woman is sweet, but not very bright, Sophia.

Fools is a light-hearted play with ridiculous characters and Simon’s witty writing. Audiences will find themselves grinning and shaking their heads over the hijinks of the fools from Kulyenchikov. And yet, as silly as the play seems on the surface, at the play’s end we are left pondering questions like, what happens to a people when they believe a lie, and is education the answer to the world’s problems, and what role does love play in individual and community life?