In everyone’s childhood there is a memory linked to Harlequin, cult show of the Piccolo Teatro, on stage continuously since July 1947, reinvented, in different editions, by the genius of Giorgio Strehler, and represented all over the world. Today a new edition, directed by Stefano de Luca, pays homage to the history of the show, with Enrico Bonavera in the role of Harlequin, alternating in some performances with Andrea Coppone, making his debut in the role, and the students who graduated from the Piccolo Theater School. In the comedy, which made the history of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, the young actors, with naturalness and skill, interpret the Comedians of the Art, dialoguing with the audience in the room and attracting even young and very young spectators into the theatrical game, restoring liveliness and joy in the gestures and mimicry codified by Strehler. In an essential scenography, with few props moved in sight, screens and footlights, that is, candles lit by the prompter – who plays with the actors and the audience, commenting and offering the lines – we witness the story of the two couples of lovers, Clarice, daughter of Pantalone and Silvio, son of the Doctor, and the other Beatrice, who pretends to be his brother Federigo, who is actually dead, and Florindo; between them the inventions of Harlequin who, to satisfy his inexhaustible hunger, puts himself at the service of both, generating hilarious misunderstandings, with the complicity of the owner of the inn, Brighella and the servant Smeraldina. The harmony in the company, made up mainly of classmates, recent graduates, who exchange complicit glances at every joke, highlights a perfect comic mechanism, a fast-paced rhythm, so as to entertain and involve, without the need for the technological setups of contemporary theatre, but thanks to theatrical craftsmanship.
The director De Luca, a student of Strehler, preserves, in fact, the poetic scenes, illuminated by candles and candelabras, the precise costumes and the exciting original music, and ideally connects to the master’s edition, defined as “Good Morning”, created that is, to “deliver” the show to the Piccolo’s students, after Strehler had thought, with the melancholy edition of “Addio”, of no longer performing it. Ua rebirth, therefore, but also an ideal handover to the new generations which revive the characters previously played by great actors, including Marcello Moretti, Franco Parenti, Gianni Santuccio, Giulia Lazzarini, Franco Graziosi, Giancarlo Dettori, Andrea Jonasson; the young people give freshness to the roles, as in the famous prank of the fly or the throwing of the dishes to be served during lunch in the inn. The alternation of dialects that identify the fixed roles is also maintained, but which become easy to understand, thanks to the mimicry and acrobatics, recreated by Marise Flach, but a legacy of the eighteenth-century Comedians of the Art who used them as a strong point to attract the public to attend their traveling shows. Between jumps, jokes, pirouettes and acrobatics and twists, recognitions, Enrico Bonavera reinterprets the mask of Marcello Moretti and then of Ferruccio Soleri, who remained in the role from 1963 to 2018, also showing the chorality of the show: the whole company remains on stage or in the visible wings so as to constantly intervene to underline how much fun is being had, all being together and not watching a video alone behind the screen of a mobile phone!
Where and when
HARLEQUIN SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS by Carlo Goldoni. Directed by Giorgio Strehler, shot by Stefano de Luca, sets Ezio Frigerio, costumes Franca Squarciapino, music Fiorenzo Carpi, lights Claudio De Pace, mime movements Marise Flach. With Enrico Bonavera and Andrea Coppone (in the performances of 29 October; 5, 6, 12 and 13 November) and with the graduate students of the “Luca Ronconi” Theater School of the Piccolo Teatro of Milan (in alphabetical order) Andrea Bezziccheri, Agnese Sofia Bonato, Bianca Castanini, Simone Pietro Causa, Giada Francesca Ciabin Miruna Cuc, Silvia Di Cesare, Daniele Di Pietro, Marco Divsic, Pasquale Montemurro, Sofia Amber Redway, Edoardo Sabato, Simone Severini, Lorenzo Vio and the musicians Lorenzo Bassani, Alessio Dal Piva , Francesco Mazzoleni, Matteo Polce and Alessia Scilipoti. Production Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa.
