A packed house and an attentive and engaged audience at the Sant'Alfonso Maria de' Liguori Auditorium in Pagani marked the Sunday evening of the Pagani Teatro Festival, now in its sixth year with a program of operas and companies that consolidates its prestige in the Campania theater scene.
Born from an idea by Alfonso Giannattasio, a true cultural animator of the city for years, the festival aims to increasingly engage young people and families, making theater accessible, inclusive, and capable of becoming an opportunity for entertainment, growth, and cultural sharing.
This is the reason why the Imprevisti e Probabilità Company, directed by actor and director Raffaele Furno, will be among the guests with their show Neapopuli. Errando nell'invisibile, the protagonist of the fifth event of the festival.
Fresh from last year's local success, when it won the fifth edition of the Festival, the Imprevisti e Probabilità Company took the audience on an intense theatrical journey into the invisible throughout the evening.
Through irony, profound reflection, and a brilliant narrative plot, two seemingly distant worlds—that of Giambattista Basile's Neapolitan fairy tale and the metaphorical and imaginary world of Calvino's Invisible Cities—have intertwined in a fascinating dialogue, capable of translating reality and vision with a passionate and profoundly human gaze.
This dialogue, born from the creative genius of Raffaele Furno, is rooted in an artistic and intellectual journey that combines an academic background with a theatrical sensibility. Trained in Naples and Chicago, where she earned a PhD in Performance Studies, Furno has established herself as one of the most original voices on our theatre scene, with her award-winning productions in Italy and her successes in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Combining research and visual sensitivity, his work is rooted in the Neapolitan theatrical tradition, reworked in a contemporary key.
Alongside director and actor Raffaele Furno, the members of the Imprevisti e Probabilità Company—formed in Formia in 1998—took turns on stage: Soledad Agresti, awarded the Writing of Difference prize at the International Biennial of Female Dramaturgy for her play "La Gamba" by Sarah Bernhardt, together with Janos Agresti, Isabella Sandrini, Annamaria Aceto, Eva Albini, Anna Andreozzi, Maria Teresa Crisci, Valentina Fantasia, and Giuseppe Pensiero.
When asked about the genesis of the show, Furno recalled for us the years he spent in the United States, a period in which the distance from Naples and his rereading of Calvino generated what he himself defines as a true mental short circuit.
This is how the project was born: "The inspiration for this dialogue between Basile and Calvino came almost by chance. At the time, I was living in the United States, where I taught the history of Italian theater and often used Cinderella the Cat as an example of popular theater. At the same time, I was preparing a course in Italian literature and wanted to introduce Calvino as a reference.
Rereading Invisible Cities, some descriptions evoked images of Naples. As an Italian abroad, I felt a strong nostalgia, and my Neapolitanness resurfaced with intensity. From this mental short circuit, I began to see echoes of Naples in Calvino and to imagine the structure of the dialogue between the two works.
The viewer thus witnessed a surprising shift between the rough narrative of the tales, with their dense and metaphorical language, and the intellectual and erudite narrative of Calvino—interpreted by an elegant, almost ethereal Marco Polo—whose Invisible Cities become a mirror of the many meanings of Naples. The result was a sophisticated and original blend of the earthly and the sublime, capable of inspiring the audience on a genuine inner journey.
The author offered us his insights on the matter: "Naples, like all very ancient cities marked by dominations of all kinds, has built its identity through countless layers. It is an extremely complex city, impossible to understand and embrace as a whole.
When reading Invisible Cities, the narrator—Marco Polo—recounts encountering a multitude of fantastic cities along his journey. Only at the end of the book does he reveal that, in reality, he has always spoken of a single city, declining it in different ways.
I transferred this game to Basile's Naples: each time I searched for a point of contact between an aspect of Calvino's invisible city and the aspect of Naples I wanted to portray at that moment. I therefore always sought an element of the invisible city that could reflect an element of Basile's Naples.
Furno then went on to explore another important element of the show: the relationship between the lights and shadows of the city of Naples, a dualism that endures over time just like its eternal contradictions.
Naples has certainly evolved and become something else, but at the same time, today there are many aspects of a Naples that is history, that is tradition, that is also decay. In fact, one of the important elements of the show, and therefore also of this constant ricochet between Calvino and Naples, is the idea that the city of Naples is simultaneously splendor and total poverty, both wealth, pomp, and even cultural richness, of cultural density, but at the same time it is atavistic hunger, lack of work, lack of prospects, lack of a future, and therefore its citizens must make do.
Naples is certainly a city that has freed itself from certain stereotypes. Today it has become a sought-after tourist destination, but at the same time, pockets of poverty, pockets of ignorance, pockets of lack of prospects still exist in a city like that. So I believe this is precisely the element that creates this continuity between past and present, that is, this further layering of utmost beauty, because Naples truly can be a breathtaking city of extreme poverty.
The show also provided moments of wonder and a playful connection with the audience when the actresses, descending into the stalls, distributed taralli, reenacting a typical street gesture. A stage device, the author explained, but also a reminder that the narrative belongs to everyone, that the audience is a living part of the popular culture the show brings to the stage.
A sign of "popularity," a gesture that, playing with linguistic registers, is renewed each evening thanks to the performers' improvisation and the audience's response. A dynamic that works even in theaters far from Naples, where the show continues to inspire the same level of enjoyment and participation.
After exploring Naples, with its lights and shadows, and traversing the stratifications imposed by time and dominations, characterizing it with immovable contradictions, this show—a blend of novelty and tradition, originality and classicism, capable of attracting and engaging the audience—has naturally led us to one last fundamental question for Raffaele Furno, whom we thank for his availability and timely reflections: what kind of emotional experience do you hope the viewer experiences through this intersection of worlds?
To this question, Furno responded as follows: "I hope this show evokes nostalgia and a sense of beauty: the beauty of a culture that must be accepted as it is, without renouncing the desire to change what doesn't work, but recognizing that we are the product of a multiplicity of influences—from Greece, France, Spain—and that this complexity is never easily manageable. And I hope to inspire a great love for theater, because the pleasure of storytelling is what drives us artists to tell stories.
We are the fruit of a thousand-year-old narrative, layered and complex, and in this complexity lies the pleasure of continuing to tell the story. Basile and Calvino were able to meet because literature speaks to one another: ultimately, it recounts atavistic feelings such as love, fear, death, religiosity, spirituality, the search for meaning. And it is precisely this search—in Calvino's fantastical journey and in the fantasy of Basile's fairy tale—that brings the two worlds together.
Another precious piece of the tireless commitment with which Alfonso Giannattasio – already creator and patron of the Pagani Teatro Festival – promotes theatre in the area was achieved a few days ago on the stage of the Auditorium Sant'Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, with the staging of the cult The suitcase on the bed – an aimless escape.
The packed house, filled with a warm and enthusiastic audience, welcomed Eduardo Tartaglia's celebrated comedy with great enthusiasm, paying tribute to Domenico Palmiero's dynamic and refined direction. A well-rehearsed cast of actors—Mariarosaria Cafiero, Antonio Lippiello, Clementina Gesumaria, Alberto Tortora, Felice D'Anna, Giovanni Del Prete, and Domenico Palmiero himself—delivered a fresh and intense take on the story, supported by a rare ensemble.
Source EDITORIAL TEAM
Comments (1)
The article about the Pagani theater festival is interesting, but several things aren't clear, such as how the guests were chosen. I'd love to know more about this and other future events.