Posts filed under 'readings'
November 29, 2008. Italian actor Lanfranco Licauli, who plays Arlecchino in productions of il Piccolo Teatro di Milano, gave Parisians a foretaste of the Goldoni play, directed by Toni Servillo, coming to the city next January. This event at La Libreria in rue du Faubourg Poissonnière was part of the weeklong activities showcasing the work of Toni Servillo both in cinema and theater. The presentation, punctuated by bursts of theatrics by the awe inspiring Licauli, was developed along two lines: the connection with Paris for Goldoni as well as for il Piccolo Teatro di Milano.
Goldoni spent the last thirty years of his life in Paris, until his death in 1793. Lanfranco Licauli read a passage from Goldoni’s Memoirs, written in Paris during the revolutionary years in the mid 1780s. The Venetian playwright was a fervent student of the works of Molière, who wrote one century earlier and in these paragraphs, read with such vivid melody by Licauli, Goldoni wrote of his reaction to seeing Le Misanthrope performed upon his arrival in the French capital. He had always admired this piece in written form, but now seeing it enacted for the first time, he was overwhelmed by the brilliance of the Parisian acting tradition. He noted how the movements, glances, even the silent moments had been studied down to a fine art, yet appeared so natural and effortless. It made the characters come to life and made the humor of the piece that much more intense. Upon leaving the theater, Goldoni wondered which he desired more, having his own plays performed in France by such accomplished actors or having it performed in Italian with Italian actors that could perform with such grace.
Il Piccolo Teatro has done both, and there is the connection. This theater company, founded in 1947 by Giorgio Strehler, has become Milan’s premier theatrical institution. The Piccolo Teatro has put on productions of Brecht, Pirandello, Chekov, and Gorky adapting them all to the contemporary theatrical styles. In 1983, Strehler was invited by Jack Lang, the French Minister of Culture, to direct the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris, a position he served in, along with his duties at Il Piccolo, until his death in 1997.
Strehler created his production of Arlecchino, Servitore di due Padroni for the first season of Il Piccolo Teatro, and this interpretation of the Goldoni play had an immediate success, contributing to a new appreciation of Goldoni then developing. Not surprisingly, given Strehler’s international formation and interests, il Piccolo Teatro di Milano has sought to bring its productions to the widest international audiences possible, and it has brought its Arlecchino to Paris numerous times since then. However, this time il Piccolo is returning with something different. Strehler first mounted a production of another of Goldoni’s works, Trilogia della Villeggiatura in 1954, and it is this piece that is coming in January. The original trilogy consisted of three plays, the first one focusing on the preparations for a trip to the seaside by the pretentious city folk, the second about their misadventures there, and the third on the impact that their travels have on their lives afterwards. Strehler created a condensed version which put all three plays together in one tour de force. Toni Servillo, who has long experience in theater with Teatri Uniti Napoli, has taken the Strehler version and reworked it in his own way, reintroducing certain scenes and cutting others to showcase Goldoni’s work in a fresh way. This new production has had a sold-out run in Milan and in 20 other Italian cities, and is presently touring Berlin, Bucharest, Moscow and St. Petersburg.
It is presumable that Goldoni would entirely approve of this fresh approach to his work. After all, Goldoni’s importance in theater was as a modernizer; he wanted to modernize the Commedia dell’Arte tradition of comedic improvisation. He wanted his players to lose the masks and the cliché routines and speak naturally, even as they presented the carefully crafted lines that Goldoni had written for them. He strove for a more “noble” comedy that would touch people with immediacy and speak with sincerity, but at the same time entertain them immensely. In his plays there is a mix of mask and plain face that reflects the web of entanglement between the marvelous artifice of theater and the realities of life. Goldoni plays with this mixture to create scenes where ordinary people confront and subvert the masked absurdities and predictable melodramas of the ridiculously extraordinary. The multi-layered richness of his social commentary has allowed him to reappear with regularity on the theatrical playbill for more than 200 years, in spite of the faithless vagaries of taste.
La Trilogia della Villeggiatura will be presented at La MC93 Bobigny, from 14-18 January, 2009. It is directed by Toni Servillo, and will be performed in Italian supertitled in French, by the repertory company of Il Piccolo Teatro di Milano.
November 30th, 2008
Roberto Saviano’s 2006 book, “Gomorra” has had enormous success in a very short time. In it he tells the stories of organized crime that circulate through the Italian consciousness like vaguely remembered recurring nightmares. The book describes the activities of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, considered the oldest criminal organization in Italy, as it has evolved in the Twenty First Century. This is where cocaine, sweatshops, loan sharks, illegal immigrants and toxic dumps all come together to create a modern day horror of biblical proportions.
The book has sold over one million copies in Italy and has been published in numerous translations, illustrating not only Italian readers’ morbid interest in the subject, but also the alarming parallels for so many other societies suffering the ills of modern life. It is available in bookstores in approximately 50 different countries, in spite of the fact that it cannot be easily classified. It is a work of reportage, but done in a narrative style, a sort of non-fiction novel. Saviano cites the murdered Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya and Truman Capote as his forerunners in this genre and his work seems to occupy a space somewhere between the two, investigating the corruption of big business on the one hand, and the sick allure of bloody crime on the other.
The Camorra, (which when spoken with a Neapolitan accent sounds like the infamous biblical city) along with its Calabrian counterpart ‘Ndrangheta are not nearly as well known as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, and for that reason, they have very successfully insinuated themselves into the industrial economy of the country. Saviano says in an interview with Fabio Fazio for Italian television, that the Camorristi don’t even call their organization by its name, merely speaking of the “system.” Members of ‘Ndrangheta similarly speak of “Cosa Nuova.” To them, calling their own organizations by their names is something laughably quaint, like calling murder, usury or blackmail by such pedestrian names. These people see themselves as mythic figures living out the cinematic visions of a hundred films. With this book, this courageous journalist (who has been the victim of numerous death threats) endeavors to tear the covers off of this clandestine culture, as one would tear the bandages off a festering wound. He calls evil by its name, and then dares Italian society to do something about it.
“Gomorra” is not just a fascinating book, one so true to life that it is the most widely read book in Italian prisons, it is also a powerful film directed by Matteo Garrone, and winner of the Grand Prize of the Festival at Cannes in 2008. The screenplay takes five of the stories from Saviano’s book and intertwines them dramatically. Garrone uses a mix of professional and non-professional actors who move through a filthy labyrinth of decaying housing projects and polluted lands as they sleep walk/run through this nightmare. There are quarrels and beatings and deep rooted fears, and there is cocaine to make it bearable, either through its money or its high. And there is murder, lots of it. But what is most tragically depicted, is the hope that so many of the individuals kindle inside of themselves, to succeed in some way, hopes that will inevitably be snuffed out. The film is a searing, burning tool with a sharp edge that cuts the images into the spectators brain, just as Saviano intended to cut his words into the reader’s mind. Here we see the underbelly of modern Europe, the apocalyptic Naples that cries out in self-inflicted pain. It is up to the viewer to decide if this is really someone else’s problem, or a social disease that infects every one of our cities, no matter how far we live from Vesuvius.
The book has been published as “Gomorrah” in the U.S. in 2007, translated by Virginia Jewiss. The film of the same name was shown at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival and will be distributed in North America by IFC. It is to be released in late 2008 or early 2009.
September 30th, 2008
On Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Edmund White read from his new novel/biography Hotel de Dream at the American Library in Paris, thus giving the last word on Parisian literary readings for June.
After 22 published works, Edmund White is still exploring and expanding and experimenting with literary forms. In this volume he gives us biography of the last days of the writer Stephen Crane and mixes it with a fascinating novelistic setting. But he goes one step further, in that he also introduces the reader to the legend of Crane’s lost final manuscript, and then proceeds to rewrite that manuscript himself.
It is a conceit that would be folly for any but the greatest modern writers, and Edmund White proves himself up to the task. The brilliance of his writing comes through beautifully on the page; however, the added dimension of Mr. White’s own inflection, emphasis, humorous spirit and intelligence which is provided by his reading voice is truly memorable. On this evening, he read a passage in which the writer Henry James comes to visit Stephen Crane in his sickroom. The interaction between James and Crane’s wife, Cora, an adamantly earthy former prostitute from Florida, is intricately wrought and masterfully brought to life in Mr. White’s voice. He understands the effete genius and the self appointed queeniness of Henry James, just as he understand the compulsive concreteness and the healthy tolerance of Mrs. Cora Crane. He loves them both enough to admire and laugh at them, and so he presents them with affection and ruthless humor. As he explains in his remarks to the listeners, White does not mean to belittle Henry James with this somewhat mocking depiction, since he considers Henry James to be one of the great writers of his epoch. However, Henry James has already been the subject of some rather hagiographic biographies in recent years, and so Mr. White feels that he can spare a bit of his image for some very entertaining scenes that may in fact be far closer to the truth.
In the past, Mr. White has always been referred to as a “gay” writer, since his subject matter is overwhelming gay themed. But Edmund White is a great writer, period. And now I know, a great reader as well.
June 26th, 2008
Shakespeare and Company, the well-known English language bookstore just across the Pont au Double from Notre Dame, held its annual festival last week in a tent set up nearby in Square Viviani. The theme this year was memoirs and biography, and the list of participants was truly impressive. I managed to attend a few of the readings, interviews and discussion panels and had a great time. Here are some of my favorites:
The high point of Thursday’s sessions was Jung Chang, talking about her biography of Chairman Mao. She has had a fascinating life, a privileged childhood as the daughter of party officials, she then experienced the chaos of the Cultural Revolution as a teenager. Later in the 1970s she was among the first students to go abroad (in her case, to England). She had lots of great anecdotes, e.g., about Imelda Marcos, who flirted with Jung Chang’s husband during the interview and said that the only western man that understood her was Richard Nixon. She also spoke of Mao’s fascination with Nixon, whom he sent for as he came close to death. In this biography of Mao, she and her husband, Jon Halliday focus on the reign of terror that existed under Mao. They write about the 70 million people who died because of the crimes of the government, and Mao’s sadistic attitude toward this suffering. He even ordered that the corpses of those who died in the Great Famine of 1958-60 be buried simply in the fields so that they may fertilize the land. He also refused medical attention for his second in command, President Liu Shao Qi, and had his agony filmed daily so he could watch it in the evening. This was in retaliation for Liu’s opposition to the Cultural Revolution. But loyalty was no protection from Mao’s sadism, and Zhou En Lai, who did not oppose him, was likewise refused cancer treatment, simply so that Zhou En Lai would die before Mao.
On Friday the thirteenth, English PEN presented a reading from imprisoned writers from various parts of the world. The letters from a Korean dissident were the centerpiece, and his concerns about tooth problems, and attachment to a spider were very touching in their simplicity. After that A.M. Homes spoke about her memoirs, “Secrets, Lies and the Truth In Between” which tells about her discovery of her own birth mother, and the contradictory emotions that this life-changing experience provoked in her. She spoke with humor, but made it clear that the humor was her only way to express the pain in any clear and socially acceptable way.
On Saturday, June 14th, A.C. Grayling gave a talk about Descartes. He is the author of “Descartes’ Mind, Descartes’ Body,” and his thorough scholarship and sharp wit made this the most entertaining hour on the program. His depiction of Descartes’ stay at the royal court in Sweden was magnificently funny. It seemed that Queen Christiana had little notion what to do with this mathematician and philosopher, having called him up to Stockholm on a whim for prestigious human trophies for her court. She asked him to dance, but he couldn’t, then she asked him to write a play, which he did reluctantly, then she asked for another, and he balked, so she had him tutor her at 5 a.m. in her unheated quarters in January. The refined Frenchman was soon properly dead from pneumonia, and his head cut off by souvenir hunters (thus the origins of the biography title).
This session was followed by Paul Auster, who was probably the true disappointment of the festival. Mr. Auster came out with the bound galleys of his new novel, available later in 2008. He opened to a page, seemingly at random, and began reading. He read for about forty minutes, stopped at the end of a paragraph somewhere, said thank you and left. It was very unsatisfying to say the least, especially considering that what he read was disjointed, meandering and taken completely out of any context. He later stood at the door of Shakespeare and Company accepting the adulation of his adoring fans.
André Shiffrin spoke on Sunday about the publishing industry in the U.S., U.K. and in France. It was enlightening, and he was a very sympathetic speaker. Naturally, what he had to say was basically an affirmation of the notion that commercial publishing has become a profit greedy business, and that the university presses have taken over the publishing of innovative fiction with a smaller profit margin. However, these presses all together garner just one percent of book sales.
Later, Marjane Satrapi, who, along with Paul Auster was the headliner of the festival, took questions from the audience. She was very entertaining and besides speaking about her graphic novel, “Persepolis,” she spoke with a lot of insight into her relationship with Iran and with the other countries she has lived in. She lives in Paris, and she got her best reactions from the audience when she spoke of the foibles of the French, which she made sure to add, she totally identified with and shared. She said that Iran was like her mother, someone she loved and accepted no matter what, and in times of need she would run to help. France, on the other hand was like her wife (!) someone she loved, but yeah, she could always cheat on, have a baby with someone else.. It was a lot of fun, and a great way to end the festival.
June 20th, 2008
