Helen Sterling

A dentist buys a small yacht and takes his two children on a cruise of the Mediterranean. His ex-wife stows away to keep an eye on the children and the inevitable happens.

Based on 'Il fu Mattia Pascal', one of Pirandello's many stories concerning the transitory nature of the intangibles "truth" and "identity". Mattia Pascal is a downtrodden average man, treated like trash by his fiancée, scorned by his associates, and cheated out of his inheritance by contemptuous relatives. The dispirited Pascal heads to Monte Carlo, accruing a fortune and also assuming the identity of a less fortunate gambler who killed himself. The "new" Pascal is treated with a dignity and respect that overwhelms him--and nearly kills him.