Pinocchio speaks Sicilian for the homage of the Catania building to Franco Scaldati

‘Pinocchio’ no longer speaks Tuscan, but Sicilian, to be exact from Palermo, at least for the ten days that go from last night’s debut until July 18, when the show with music is staged in the Platamone courtyard of the Palazzo della Culture of Catania in the version signed by the writer, director and actor from Palermo Franco Scaldati, produced by the Teatro Stabile of Catania in collaboration with the Metropopolare theater of Prato, thus ‘allowing’ in some way Tuscany to ‘re-enter’ and partly ‘regain possession’ of the work of his Collodi. In the main roles, three from the Palermo tradition and three from Catania, with a game of musicality and accents desired and amalgamated by the director Livia Gionfrida, Domenico Ciaramitaro, who came out of the school of Emma Dante, for Pinocchio, Aurora Quattrocchi for the Blue Fairy, will compete. Serena Barone for the Talking Cricket, Manuela Ventura for Geppetto, Cosimo Coltraro for Mangiafuoco and Alessandra Fazzino for her first actress.The manuscript is not a complete play, but Scaldati translates the Collodi text from Italian into Sicilian, with a caption ending that announces a completely different ending from the original. Collodi’s Tuscan puppet who eventually assumes an identity in flesh and blood, here is a Sicilian puppet and remains so, beyond a final exhortation of the shark to become a pirate of the sea, together with Lucignolo and his father Geppetto , to express a free figure. “There is no definite judgment on the souls of these figures, of these ‘comedian spirits’ who alternate hungry on the stage of theater and life, in a play of light and shadow. And above all – the director Livia Gionfrida, who also signs the adaptation of the show, the scenography with Vincenzo La Mendola and the costumes, points out to AdnKronos – there is no moralism in this work, but there is a great moral, paradoxically made of truth and sincerity, given that we speak of Pinocchio often reduced from common morality to the long-nosed puppet for the lies he repeated “. But at the same time, the ending could also recall the echo of yet another episode in the cycle of the defeated Vergiano, in which the Mal avoglia like Mastro-Don Gesualdo they are unable to change their nature, they remain what they are, like this Sicilian Pinocchio who renewing a sort of ‘oyster morality’ dear to Giovanni Verga – to whom the Catania permanent theater, directed by Laura, is named Sicignano is now ‘revived’ in its headquarters in the Cibali district also by a large multi-storey and multi-handed mural, the result of the craftsmanship of a group of ten Sicilian artists – pupo is and pupo remains, even with the open perspective of a future pirate. “There is more Scaldati than Collodi in this representation – explains Livia Gionfrida – I lived in Sicily all my childhood and adolescence and part of my youth, then I left for various destinations like many Sicilians and this for me is a extraordinary opportunity, above all artistic but also personal, to return to work in Sicily whose appeal is always very strong in me and to pay homage to this great artist “. Also for the actress Aurora Quattrocchi, the Fairy in ‘Pinocchio’, intervened in the conversation on Scaldati organized in the baroque Benedictine Monastery and interviewed by AdnKronos, “Franco Scaldati has a place of honor in my artistic activity as an actress, since I made my debut with him and now on one of her texts I am engaged in what so far is my latest work: it seems miraculous to me, after so many years, I would like to say after centuries … Because I am old and proud of it: but woe to call myself old , it is a hypocrisy that I do not tolerate! And the staging of this ‘Pinocchio’ begins with a monologue that is actually a real dialogue with him, because I feel his presence still on stage, I feel that he is there and I continue to move forward next to him “. (by the correspondent Enzo Bonaiuto)