The Spark and Fire of It

Love is a good thingso true in The Spark and Fire of It, this classic one-act romance: two young people smitten to the point of delirium and a gruff father who will have none of it. The father sees his daughters suitor only as a penniless lad with nothing to offer. But the young womans mother sees her own husband in the young man, remembering a time when he, too, was an empty-handed suitor. Add internal complications: the young women questions her own judgment, and the young man is tempted by a hooligan called Rascal. Then there is Old Gentleman, who, like a befuddled Socrates, understands this thing called love. The romance contains poems that begin with a line of Shakespeare that Soto artfully extends into his own original poetry. The dialogue is written in the vernacular of Elizabethan timesthough occasionally it falls into contemporary street slang. The code switching reminds readers that love is a human experience that makes the young go crazy no matter the century!