At Casa Santanelli, 'Fosco – Storia de nu matto' by and with Peppe Fonzo will be staged

On Monday, January 6th, at 6:00 PM, Il Teatro cerca Casa (Theatre Seeks a Home) will restart its season of apartment performances at Casa Santanelli (Via Sagrera, 23, Naples), featuring a new play by Peppe Fonzo, starring in "Fosco (storia de nu matto)," featuring live music performed by Flavio Feleppa (accordion). Fosco is inspired by "Lu Frasulino," a relatively unknown dialect song by Domenico Modugno, which blends theatrical narration with musical moments and other gems by the Salento singer-songwriter (such as "Lu Salinaro," "Sciccareddu mbriaco," and "La sveglialetta"). Reservations are required; please call 3343347090, 3470963808, or 081 5782460, or visit www.ilteatrocercacasa.it.
Fosco lu matto is a character on the margins, the madman/buffoon that everyone laughs at, always insulted and beaten, a misfit who burns with loneliness. Before he was just like the others, with a job, a house, a monotonous life and integrated into the community, but one day he goes mad and becomes u scemo de lu pese and no one asks why. In the background are images of an unidentified southern village, a context in which the harshness of life, the difficulty of ignorance, give body to the story of a poor Christ.
“This work is dedicated to my great-uncle, Peppe Lu Negus, the idiot of Casalbore (my mother's hometown, perched on a mountain in the Sannio hinterland, bordering Puglia),” says Peppe Fonzo, “a place that inspires the settings, episodes, and dialect. Peppe lu Negus was unapproachable, living with his donkey, the only one he spoke to. When people told me about him, I felt a profound sense of compassion mixed with admiration: an isolated man who chose mental isolation to escape the desolation of geographical isolation. Who knows what he was thinking? What kind of life had he led before becoming Lu Negus? Blending a child's feelings with collected and fictionalized accounts, drawing inspiration from the harshness of post-war peasant life and verismo tales, Fosco was born, a musical tale disarming in its simplicity.”