Overview
In the Holy Year of 2000 in Rome, Matt has learned that his painting has given him a curable form of cancer. In return for survival, he must abandon paint for a new artistic medium. Ultimately he chooses to dress in religious garb, videotape pilgrims' intimate confessions and display the confessions as exhibits. Along the way, "Father Matt" gets more than he bargained for with Ron and Dolo, the parents of his friend Pete, and his videotaping ends up entangling and destroying their lives. A scathingly funny satire on the warping hunger for fame, the moral pollution and desperation in the worship of icons, both religious and secular, and the betrayal involved in creating art, CHAUCER IN ROME brims with John Guare's inimitable wit and understanding.Synopsis
In the Holy Year of 2000 in Rome, Matt has learned that his painting has given him a curable form of cancer. In return for survival, he must abandon paint for a new artistic medium. Ultimately he chooses to dress in religious garb, videotape pilgrims' intimate confessions and display the confessions as exhibits. Along the way, "Father Matt" gets more than he bargained for with Ron and Dolo, the parents of his friend Pete, and his videotaping ends up entangling and destroying their lives. A scathingly funny satire on the warping hunger for fame, the moral pollution and desperation in the worship of icons, both religious and secular, and the betrayal involved in creating art, CHAUCER IN ROME brims with John Guare's inimitable wit and understanding.
NY Post
...Guare is a wise and funny master of the ironies of fate and place...