June 14, 2014
If you’re
ready for something entirely different or if you’re naturally drawn to things
Italian – and who isn’t? – mark your
calendar for the In Scena Italian
Theater Festival, beginning with this unique play. The festival runs in all five NYC boroughs
through June 24. Go here for the calendar: http://www.inscenany.com/
This is a
play based upon a novel written by an award-winning movie director, Paolo
Sorrentino. The novel is nearly 400
pages long; the play is less than 5,000 words delivered by a woman playing a
man, animating the dialogue impeccably with dance, gestures and song. Every spoken word is in Italian but that is
absolutely no barrier for non-speakers thanks not only to the English
super-titles that display above the action but also to the richness of the
delivery. If anything, this play is a
tutorial in how much more than words there is to a meaningful performance.
Tony Pagoda,
lounge singer, world-weary like all of Sorrentino’s characters, regardless of
the medium, is about to experience what should be one of the highlights of his
career – a performance at Radio City Music Hall where none other than Frank
Sinatra will be staring back at him from the audience.
Iaia Forte, the
actress who played Trumeau in Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning “The Great Beauty” (La
Grande Bellezza) rivets your attention as Tony.
Only one other character intermittently appears on stage – a woman with
whom Tony dances provocatively.
Life is a
song. Life is a dance. Tony may not be at the end – the music is
still playing – but he’s definitely past the middle. He’s stuck in that moment that seems to
fascinate Sorrentino – when his characters can no longer escape the conclusion
that the promise of abundance has failed.
Tony is disenchanted with the world, but he cannot claim innocence, none
of us can.
Tony Pagoda
is past the point of fixing anything. He
can only be eloquent about the place to which he has arrived. This eloquence Iaia Forte embodies for
us. In the telling, she makes us forget
that she is a woman playing a man, or that she is speaking a language that may
not be our first. As Tony, she rails
against all of those things that disgust him; Tony finally tells us he only
likes “nuance.” Iaia Forte gives us
nuance.
I do see in
all of Sorrentino’s work a flicker of hope – circumstances do not change,
nothing develops except the possibility of understanding. For Tony what flickers is one word – a name
with reverberations in the literature of his homeland – Beatrice.
The In Scena Theater Festival is like an
Italian feast made up of endless courses. That’s what I felt when Executive Producer
Carlotta Brentan enthusiastically outlined for me the week’s lineup, like a
master chef lavishly describing the specials on the menu. I have my eyes on three tempting dishes. Buon
Appetito!
-------------------------------------------------------
Once again,
the full In Scena calendar: http://www.inscenany.com/
Hanno tutti ragione – Everybody’s right
Based on the novel by
Paolo Sorrentino
Tony Pagoda aka Tony. P – Iaia Forte
Director Tony Servillo
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