Bøger af Bernard Mendillo

IRISH BASEBALL is a comedy about a young woman who is beset by trials-who harkens to the memory of her father for guidance. The essential focus of the play is that "life is not measured by a series of perfect actions, but, rather, by a series of perfect efforts." Mary Sorrento is a research biologist trying to develop a test that will serve as an early warning for a childhood disease. It's not going well. She's running out of time-she's running out of her grant money. Her boyfriend, Bill Connors, shows up to say that he is leaving her. Then, her best friend Moira, who used to be the Sorrento's au pair, announces that the government wants to deport her. Mary turns to her father, John Sorrento-who appears out of the darkness in another space and time. They talk of many things: baseball, McDonald's, King Arthur. Through these conversations-and through flashbacks-Mary's past is revealed: which holds the answers to her life. There is the underlying story of how John Sorrento, a widower, invites his friend Jane to the house for dinner-and it ends in disaster. To set matters right, Moira and Mary conspire to use a game of baseball between the staff of John's newspaper and a bunch of young Irish kids to get John and Jane together again. Meanwhile, it's Bill, ironically, who can help Mary and Moira solve their problems. But Bill has been pushed away by Mary's ideal of the man her father was. It can all work itself out-but only if Mary learns the secret to her life.

A serious play - with caustically comic moments - about the richest family in the world and the terrible secret that tears them apart. It is Aeschylus' world of Agamemnon - forty stories up in modern Manhattan. This play has hatred, dishonor, infidelity, crimes, cheating, lying, deception - and a chorus. A. G. Wonder - while away at war ("Corporate War," the Chorus expounds) - commits an act which ultimately was designed to ensure his family's survival for the next millennium, but, which will, in reality, serve to split it asunder forever. A.G. is about to return, and his wife, Tammy, who has taken up with A.G.'s cousin, Aaron, must marshal her forces to preserve her new-found position of power. Their children - Elle, Orrin and the stricken Irene - are cast into the arena to fend for themselves; while Cassy, A.G.'s "personal assistant" (to whom "on one ever listens") holds the ultimate trump card. In the background is the Chorus - three young girls - who comment on the why's and wherefore's of what's happening - constantly hinting as to their true identity. In the end, it's up to Elle and to Orrin to decide if, when and how the hatred is to end.

"Dancing Naked with the Devil" is a comic novel about a man trying to come to grips with the never-ending worry that is ruining his life. Robert Roberts worries about his job, about his wife, about their inability to have a baby, about his wife's best - and very sexy - friend. He worries if the stove is off, if the candles are out, if the alarm clock is set. He worries about everything! Until he ultimately learns that the thing that can rob your soul is letting life get away from you: "Dancing naked with the devil."

BLIGHTERS is a comedy about college kids finding out who they are. Or perhaps who they would like to be.Oddball characters abound- Connors, Gallagher, Twardowski and Tweets. Not to mention Helmburg-aka: Special Courier Number Eight.It's all part of a mystical time we all once shared- perhaps more fancifully than actually-in our youth.

Looking back on my life through years of playing touch football, I've got to ask: Has it been silly or serious, ordinary or special, prosaic or Homeric? Who knows? It's my life and I'm sticking with it.

MATES IN PARADISE is a comedy about two men who, through their growing friendship, find the courage to trust in themselves and to begin to flourish in the real world. The play begins with Whittler and Evans hanging from their makeshift crosses

EXTRAVAGANZA is a romantic comedy about a struggling actor-seeking something meaningful in his life-who is torn between the love of two women: one, a down-to-earth, loyal person; the other, a high-flying free spirit.

SARA'S EYES is a comedy about a playwright who has trouble putting his life back together following divorce.Joe "Mace" Mancinni finds it difficult to live life outside the theater. He is adrift.He finds himself acting more the visiting uncle to his children.He's not dating.He doesn't see the point to much of anything.The action takes place in real time, during the rehearsal of his new play, "Sara's Eyes."It's a story about friendship and love - loyalty and conviction.

BUT ONE OF THEM IS IRISH is a comedy about loyalty. When the play opens, life is as it should be. Joe Parliamo is happily making pizza and talking- and talking, and Maria Buonanova and Maria O'Reilly-the Two Marias-teach school and practice medicine, respectively. True, Joe's silent partner, Kevin Lynch, feels he's being punished -but that's normal for Kevin. And Joe and Kevin have happy, if uncertain, relationships with the Two Marias. On this day, there is a new customer in the restaurant-Maria Albanotte. She's a bit on the mysterious side-a shy poet, with an undetermined past who, nonetheless, manages to become the Third Maria. But then news arrives. In Italy, Joe's great uncle Hannibal had died. And Hannibal's great nephew, Rocco DiSanto, is arriving in America that very day! Why? What does he want? Could it have to do with money that Hannibal put up for the restaurant, two generations ago? In the midst of their speculations, the door bursts open and in steps Rocco DiSanto-"Rocco Full of Grace," as Maria Albanotte would say. Rocco carries a rolled-up chart, of sorts, that will eventually be displayed. On it, is information that will change everyone's lives. The six of them soon reveal to each other and, more importantly, to themselves, not only their lives, but their very souls. Being loyal to your heritage. Being loyal to your family. To your friends. And-perhaps most importantly-to yourself. That's what's discovered, as our six friends eat calzones, drink il vino rosso, and laugh and love-all in an hour or two, in a small restaurant, on one afternoon of their lives.

IT'S WHAT WE DO: SORT OF A LOVE STORY is a humorous, episodic novel about a man in his 70s who becomes a single parent when his wife leaves him just as they adopted a little girl from China.Mario Cervello is besieged by lost love, uncertainly, obsessions, tiredness and, most of all onions-they are the source, as he tries often to explain, of "monumental gastric distress."His daughter Happy is his sole potential for redemption. The narration is first-person, episodic, in no chronological order whatsoever-as it unravels the story of Mario and Happy's journey-humorous, heartfelt, uplifting-through the travail of life, love, family, parents, children and-most of all-hope.

Seven hundred and sixty years after St. Domenic founded the religious order that was to bear his name, I graduated from St. Pius Dominican Grammar School in Providence, Rhode Island. Is that a miracle? Was my beloved New York Football Giants' victory in Superbowl XLII a miracle? I'll leave those considerations, dear reader, in your more-than-capable hands. As for me, I went to St. Pius from 1954 to 1962. I was taught by eight Dominican nuns. I learned to read and write. This is the story of those years, as I remember them, with any number of digressions and side stories as time and space allow. From clapping erasers, to Catholic arithmetic, to diagramming sentences, to milk money, to serving Mass and dropping Communions, to uniforms and May Processions and Gregorian Chant-to putting on school plays that make it impossible for me ever to run for President-this is the saga of my eight years and those eight women who shaped my life.

I LOVE YOU, FRANK SINATRA is a serious comedy about redemption-about two people who have been hurt by love-and who have inflicted hurt themselves. Benjamin Borelli-a struggling playwright who works in a bowling alley - and Missy Reardon-an editor at the New York Times who strives to live in a world of grace and charm-both live with the pain of their pasts. They throw up walls-to protect themselves from human contact. This begins to change when Beverly Grimaldi, Benjamin's sister, decides to fix-up Benjamin with Heather McCauley. This is destined to failure - but Benjamin meets Heather's roommate-Missy. And although Benjamin and Missy fight it, they are drawn to each other. Benjamin falls hard. "It's a conflict," he screams to his sister. "A major conflict!" He then sets out to break down the walls between Missy and himself. Along the way, he helps Beverly and Frank break down the wall that has risen between them. And then there's Rodman Jones, the director of Benjamin's new play, who's interested in Missy and Heather. Benjamin and Missy spar and jab with each other: drawing alternatively closer and then further apart. When they finally smash the walls and throw themselves into passion-it seems all their dreams are smashed as well. Through a twist of fate, Missy ends up taking a small role in Benjamin's play. And when she suddenly says the wrong line in the wrong place during the opening-night performance-"Maybe the most important dream of all is never to stop dreaming"-it throws Benjamin and Missy together for a final confrontation. A confrontation with their pasts and with themselves. A confrontation with redemption.