Page 29 - 2018 Festival Edition

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Humour and humanity’ in desperate times
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NAPOLI MILIONARIA!
ABILITY CHOICE FREEWILL OPPORTUNITY LIBERTY RELEASE REDEMPTION ABILITY CHOICE FREEWILL OPPORTUNITY LIBERTY RELEASE REDEMPTION
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BRUCE URQUHART
Managing Editor
Bringing Napoli Milionaria! to the Avon Theatre stage
became something of a passion project for director Antoni Cimolino.
The play – widely considered a “great world clas- sic” – had rarely been attempted in recent years, with only a handful of productions since Ian McKel- len starred as Gennaro in 1991 at London’s Lyttel- ton Theatre. Inspired by the play’s central theme
of community, Cimolino and the Stratford Festival commissioned a new translation from playwright John Murrell, who worked from a literal translation of Eduardo De Filippo’s comedic masterpiece by Donato Santeramo.
“We’re thrilled to be doing it,” Cimolino said of the play’s Stratford debut. “The challenge will be to
“That’s this world,” Cimolino said. “This isn’t just about making money or God. It’s about the humili- atio. In this world, because of the fascists and the Nazis, you can either have dignity or you can have honesty, but you can’t have both. If you want to live with a little bit of money, you have to turn into a thief. And if you want to be honest, you’re going to be very poor.
“And life shouldn’t be like that.”
continued on page 30
The challenge will be to open up the culture so people can understand it but, at the same time, connect us to our shared humanity.
open up the culture so people can understand it but, at the same time, connect us to our shared human- ity.”
Set around the end of the Second World War, Napoli Milionaria! tells the story of a Neapolitan family that, desperate to survive, begins dealing on the Italian black market. While the husband, Gennaro, disapproves of his family’s gradual cor- ruption, Amalia, the family matriarch, continues to grow their criminal enterprise. Gennaro is even more shocked when he returns from a year-long detention at a prisoner of war camp and discovers his family’s utter moral decline.
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THE BEACON HERALD | 2018 FESTIVAL EDITION
PAGE 29