Plot
The story is set in Regency Brighton in 1811. Paul, the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes, an émigré from the terrors of the French Revolution, is passing off Melanie, a beautiful young girl, as his ward – the daughter of an executed friend, the Marquis de Tramont. In fact, Melanie is a dance hall singer. Paul's plan is to marry Melanie to a rich husband such as Edward, Marquis of Sheere, who seeks her hand. The rich Lady Julia Charteris, who is much taken with Paul, encourages Edward's marital plans and tries to woo Paul for herself. But Melanie has long loved Paul, and in a last gamble to turn him away from Lady Julia, she pretends to return to France. Her trick works: Paul realises the depth of his feelings for her and there is a romantic happy ending.
Read more about this topic: Conversation Piece (musical)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)