Edoardo Erba.
Pirandello, Nobel Prize for literature 1934, ça va sans say, was one of the most prolific and innovative playwrights of the last century internationally. Countless studies on his texts, humor, poetics and theatrical production. Still, there is something that has escaped the attention of critics and scholars. A curious anniversary in his works of a strange sexual perversion: the husband who grants the wife of having other lovers. And it is precisely from this inspiration Superis that Edoardo Erba wrote his latest text, “Pirandello Pulp”, staged from 4 to 16 March at the Franco Parenti Theater. With the direction of Gioele Dix and played by Massimo Daporto and Fabio Troiano, Pirandello returns to challenge the theater, to tell himself by questioning the hierarchical relationships internal to doing theater, staging a new “game of the parties” that sees a director and a stage technician in league who want to try their hand at the homonymous representation. We interviewed Erba to make us tell the background of dramaturgical writing.
How was this idea born and what does it involve trying with Pirandello?
The idea came to me several years ago. I am a playwright, so I know Pirandello well: I read it, studied it and I went to see it several times. Once in particular I went to see The game of the parts And I noticed that he always speaks of a particular sexual perversion, that is, that of the husband who grants the wife to go with others. And this dynamic finds itself in many of its comedies, declined in different forms. He is remembered for the greatness of theatrical thought, for the concept of mask, of one, none, one hundred thousand.
But I find that instead the thing I about most is a much simpler thing: it is a mental perversion, much more strange. So, reflecting us, after a few years I came up with the idea: telling of a director who had to stage the game of the parts that is confronted with a light technician who knows nothing about the show, he is an ignorant, he knows nothing even of Pirandello, he knows nothing about anything. So the director begins to explain to him how to represent the show. In the end the roles overturn themselves, since the technician proves to be more skilled in understanding this perverse game of Pirandello, having lived it firsthand. This relationship therefore goes on, up to an ending in which it is clear that all this, as in Henry IV, is a recitation of two subjects who are not the one who announces to be. At the end of the accounts, it is an act of love, a criticism and also a little a mockery of Pirandello.
It can be said that even in this case there is a winner and a won, as in the original text of Pirandello? How does this reversal resolve?
In the end there is only one winner, who is the theater. I have been writing theater for almost 40 years, I have written many comedies and of course to do such a job with great constancy it takes a lot of passion. This ancient media really passionate me, I did everything to renew it, because what a playwright has to do today is primarily trying to bring back a heritage that is 2500 years old.
And what game of the parts is there currently in the theater? Who wins between direction and dramaturgy?
At the moment the Italian dramaturgy has also imposed itself, we think of Stefano Massini and his Lehman Trilogy that has been appreciated all over the world. This gave a great hand to the Italian dramaturgy. I also had works represented in many countries, especially Germany, England, France, the United States, Japan. I shot a little, I saw the various theatrical situations. Our dramaturgy is highly appreciated and considered, it was even before, even the contemporary one that has struggled a little to establish itself, but now it has its own dignity. When I carry a text I am no longer looked at as a strange being.
She, being both playwright and director, lives on this game of roles. Which dress with most pleasure?
I prefer that of the playwright. I started direction with my first texts, simply because nobody staged them. Then for more than twenty years I have not made any anymore. Now I have started to do it again with great pleasure because every now and then I think I was too alone, I spent too many hours writing and now I enjoy the company of the others, the work of director who previously seemed almost a waste of time compared to that of the writer. I found the joy of pure theater. It is the joy of being with others, of sharing a job: theater is a collective job, where the person who gives the most humble contribution has the same dignity as others. I like it very much for this too, it’s a very egalitarian job. The cinema is a little more hierarchical. In the contemporary theater, however, there is a great familiarity with the technicians, with those who contribute to the show in another way. A kind of Itai Doshin is created, the Japanese say: everyone converges towards a point. Then I find, from a social point of view, that theater is a salvation for many difficult people – including – which would hardly find a place in a more organized job, instead within this kind of organized chaos they manage to express themselves.
Did director Dix made changes to the original text or has it remained faithful?
There is a great mutual trust: I like to work like this with people, giving a lot of trust and believing us. It seemed to me, from the conversations we had, that he had fully understood the spirit of the text. A playwright knows that he must always be a little betrayed in the direction. And this is because, since the theater is vital, every time there is a new staging, this adapts a little to the company, the situation, to the director’s ideas and therefore the text inevitably undergoes some small variations. It is a mutual exchange.
