Amour is the most common word in the titles of the works by Marivaux. In this most elegant comedy, the six characters relentlessly clash on the theme; as it is almost always the case with Marivaux, everything is clear, and everything is complete from the very first scene and the first encounter. At the same time, everything is still to be understood and above all to be said. Love is present, and is a dominant factor, even though it is being avoided in order to save from excessive suffering. It is down to the actors to involve the spectators in this passionate examination that culminates in the surprise of finally finding love. 
For the first time in Italian, La seconda sorpresa dell’amore is being presented to Italian audiences thanks to a project taken on by the Ministry of Culture to encourage people to discover Marivaux, possibly the greatest playwright of the eighteenth century in France and Italy. Despite the legendary stagings by Strehler, Chéreau and other important directors, the plays have never fully entered the repertoires of theatres, a curious destiny for a writer who, throughout his lifetime, preferred working with the Théâtre-Italien rather than the Comédie-Française, finding in the heirs to the Commedia dell’Arte, with their gestures and obsessive nature of eloquence constantly seeking precision, the ideal protagonist for his work; the process that emotions and feeling undergo to escape the confines of reason.