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Silvio Orlando
Pablo Remón
Ciarlatani
Playwright Pablo Remón brings to the stage of Teatro Caio Melisso Spazio Carla Fendi the hilarious comedy Ciarlatani, of which he is author and director, marking Silvio Orlando's return to Festival dei Due Mondi .
Anna is a stage actress whose career is in decline. Diego is an established director of commercial films. Both seemingly represent the two extremes of the artistic profession: success and failure. Both are going through a personal crisis, and their stories are linked from a common figure: cult 1980s director Eusebio Velasco, Anna's father and Diego's teacher, who has disappeared and is isolated from the world.
"Charlatans is a play in which only four actors travel through dozens of characters, spaces and times. A satire on the world of theater and audiovisuals, but also a reflection on success, failure and the roles we play, in and out of fiction," says Remón, who draws on to an eminently theatrical narrative, but with a fictional and cinematic aspiration, unravels a play in chapters with a structure closer to a novel than theater.
by Pablo Remón
Italian translation by Davide Carnevali
from Los Farsantes
with Silvio Orlando
and with (in o. to.) Francesca Botti, Francesco Brandi, Blu Yoshimi
scenes Roberto Crea
lights Luigi Biondi
costumes Ornella e Marina Campanale
assistant director Raquel Alarcón
directed by Pablo Remón
stage director Luigi Flammia
employer lights Federico Calzini
phonic Gianrocco Bruno
seamstress Piera Mura
assistant director Sonia Mingo
assistant costume designer Daria Latini
Fonolight lighting service ltd
Gutta audio service
transportation MS Futura Srl
stage photo Guido Mencari
regiavideo Nicolò Bressan Degli Antoni
videomakers Ilaria Zago and Pietro Coppola
administrative consulting Teresa Rizzo
management Vittorio Stasi
generaldirection Maria Laura Rondanini
Production Goldfinch Ltd
in co-production with Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi, Teatro di Roma / Teatro Nazionale
___
Who are those charlatans?
Text by Maddalena Giovannelli
Auteur cinema and TV series, arthouse theaters and planetary distribution, masters left of oblivion and shiny new web stars. The contradictions of an art in danger of being completely crushed by the rules of the market, plumbed thirty years ago by Yasmina Reza's celebrated Art (1994), reappeared with crystal clarity in Nanni Moretti's latest film, Il sol dell'avvenire (2023). Giovanni, an alter-ego director of Moretti's, is making a film about the Italian Communist Party of the 1950s, with completely different rules from than those that the big platforms require: finding backers will turn out to be far more complex for this very reason than expected. The protagonist of the film within the film is Silvio Orlando, who plays a section secretary grappling with crucial political and personal choices that are only seemingly anachronistic and distant from us: how much are we willing to to change in order to succeed? to what can we give up in order to preserve the position we have obtained? to what degree of compromise is it right to stop?
These and other capital issues reverberate from Moretti's screenplay to The Charlatans by Pablo Remón, a Madrid-based author active between film and theater; it is not difficult, accomplice to Silvio Orlando's onstage presence in both works, to perceive in the one the questions and instances of the other.
The protagonist of Charlatans is Diego, a successful director who has well understood the formula for producing with the big networks and getting audiences to love him. Now is his golden moment: he has a new TV series in hand, and a super lead actress has just signed his contract. But at the very moment when we can take the photograph of our triumph, there is always someone or something that can remind us of who we were, or who we wanted to be. For Diego, it is an old master of the film school, Eusebio Velasco, an adamantine talent never compromised with the market, now isolated and forgotten from all. Eusebio's daughter, Anna, is also in the reckoning with her acting career, always on the verge of beginning and always ready to to crash on new failures. The two parables will intersect diverting the paths of both. Around to them, a galaxy of appearances: actresses, coked-up producers, underage extras, fathers and mothers. Their role is mainly to applaud the success or remark on the failures of Diego or Anna, as if all human relationships around art then end up being squashed on this dual function. Remón seems, in this respect, to have in mind Thomas Bernhard's cruel Trilogy of the Arts (1983-1985), which photographs a humanity eaten up by lividity toward genius and contempt for mediocrity.
Quacks thus sinks his pen mercilessly into the sores of a small world adrift, and thus ends up moving from the specifics of artistic production to a broader cross-section of a society obsessed with success. The genre chosen by the playwright is not accidental, however: Remón opts for a dreamlike, anti-naturalistic satire that seems to be a blob of the distortions and paradoxes of contemporary rhetoric and acts by accumulation. At first glance it may seem to recognize a parody of the television and film industry in the style of the Italian series Boris, or the more recent Call My Agent. We see Anna, for example, engaged in a surreal telenovela set after the end of the war, entitled The Days of Our Lives, as poorly written and poorly acted as René Ferretti's The Eyes of the Heart; or we laugh at the producer who has a vision of the film as "pure as the cocaine he snorts." But Remón soon discards from the quotidian and parodic register and builds up a surreal accumulation of gags that are comical precisely because they take the rote mechanisms of logical thought by storm. In fact, the dramaturgical structure of Charlatans is built above all on rhythm: a cog of comic timing based on the contrast between long monologues and short quips, on the constant entrances and exits of characters who seem primarily to be projections of the imagination, nightmares or dreams of the two protagonists that vanish an instant after appearing. One laughs, in the end, precisely because one accepts without even realizing it that one is straying from the realistic plane on which one had illusorily settled.
Metrics are crucial in this rhythmic tour de force, and the choice to entrust the care of the Italian version to an experienced playwright like Davide Carnevali is therefore not accidental. If the specificity of translation for theater is a problem that is as relevant as it is often underestimated, in comedy it becomes an inescapable junction: the original must be adapted to the target context, so from return the system of socio-cultural references in an agile way, in the very quick time needed to decode a joke or nonsense. Dario Fo's translators around the world are well aware of the complexity of the challenge; Remón, on his side, considers the issue of adaptation so important from hide in his script a small tribute to his colleague Carnevali.
But what, ultimately, is the real parodic object of Charlatans? In the first place, it has been said, the splendors and miseries of the theatrical, television and film worlds. Remón, by the way, knows well that the painterly gesture leaves tracks of color not only on the canvas but also on the clothes of those he draws, and so he pillories himself by portraying himself-in a lively interlude that applies all the mechanisms of a sprightly autofiction-as a clumsy plagiarist of others' ideas.
But that is not enough. Parody is always a game of mirrors, and it is likely that even when it feels safe and distant from the worlds described, the audience also discovers itself reflected and deformed. The race to achieve success at any cost, the exclusion of those who are not willing to to abide by the rules of the market, the cone of shadow in which those who fail and those who suffer are left are forms of violence to that we witness or apply every day, on the stage of a society all devoted to self-representation.
With this in mind, it is appropriate to question to thoroughly the chosen title, perhaps one of the most courageous translation choices in this Italian version. The original "Los Farsantes" in fact indicates from one side to theater actors, and on the other those who pretend, lie and cheat in real life. If we force ourselves to preserve both meanings equally, we inevitably end up falling back on dusty translations such as "I commedianti," which extinguish the polemical vis of the title. Better "Charlatans," then, because under the spotlight of this show-be assured-there are not only the performers. Who, then, are those farsantes, willing to any compromise to get an iota of attention, ridiculous and constantly performing?
It is said that the great director Ernst Lubitsch explained the secret of comedy this way to his young colleague Billy Wilder: "You must not tell the audience 'two plus two equals four.' One must just say 'two plus two' and let them to do the calculating." to us, then, the thankless task of doing the sums.
Born to Naples in 1957, he worked in theater in the following productions: from 1970 to 1980 in Kabarett by R. Carpentieri and in Anemic Cinéma by to. Neiwiller; from 1980 to 1985 in Black out by to. Neiwiller, La Stanza by Orlando-Taiuti, Due Uomini e un Armadio by Orlando-Taiuti, Ragazze sole con qualche esperienza by E. Moscato with Moscato, Orlando, Taiuti and Ruccello; from 1985 to1990 in Comedians by G. Salvatores, Eldorado by G. Salvatores; from 1990 to 2000 in Sottobanco by Starnone directed by D. Lucchetti, Due Farse by P. De Filippo directed by Silvio Orlando, Shakespeare's The Tempest directed by B. Corsetti; from 2000 to 2010 in Eduardo al Kursaal by E. De Filippo directed by Armando Pugliese, Questi Fantasmi by E. De Filippo, directed to. Pugliese, The God of Carnage by Reza directed by R. Andò, Hamlet by Shakespeare directed by to. Pugliese ; from 2010 to 2019 in If there are no more questions by P. Virzì, The Nephew of Rameau by Diderot directed by S. Orlando, The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare directed by V. Binasco, The School by D. Starnone directed by D. Lucchetti, Lacci by D.Starnone directed by to. Pugliese, Si nota all 'imbrunire text and direction by Lucia Calamaro; from 2020 to 2022 in Si nota all'imbrunire text and direction by Lucia Calamaro, La vita davanti to itself from the novel by Romain Gary reduction and direction Silvio Orlando.In cinema he works from 1985 to 1990 in Palombella Rossa by N. Moretti, La settimana dellaSfinge by D. Luchetti; from 1990 to 2000 in Il portaborse by D. Luchetti, Un'altra vita by C. Mazzacurati, Sud by G. Salvatores, La Scuola by D. Luchetti, Ferie d'agosto by P. Virzì, La mia generazione by W. Labate, I Magi randagi by S. Citti, Nirvana by G. Salvatores, Aprile by N. Moretti, Auguri Professore by Riccardo Milani, from 2000 to 2010 in Fuori dal Mondo by G Piccioni, Preferisco il rumore del mare by M. Calopresti, La stanza del figlio by N Moretti, Il Papà di Giovanna by P. Avati, Il Caimano by N. Moretti, Caos Calmo by Antonello Grimaldi, Ex by Fausto Brizzi_, Il grande Sogno_ by M. Placido; from 2010 to 2018 in Parents and Children by Giovanni Veronesi, La Passione by C. Mazzacurati, Il delitto di via Poma by Roberto Faenza, Un Castello in Italia by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, La variabile umana by B. Oliviero, La sedia della Felicità by C. Mazzacurati, Un paese quasi perfetto by Massimo Gaudioso; from 2019 to 2022 in Lacci by Daniele Luchetti; Il bambino nascosto by Roberto Andò, Aria-ferma by Leonardo Di Costanzo in which she co-starred with Toni Servillo, Siccità by Paolo Virzì, Il Sol dell'Avvenire by Nanni Moretti.For television he works to Zanzibar, Emilio, The Neighbors, Felipe Has Blue Eyes, Michael at War, Parents and Children, in the TV series The Young Pope with Jude Law, Diane Keaton, John Malkovich and directed by Paolo Sorrentino for Sky and HBO.In his long career he has won numerous awards including the Telegatto, several Nastri d'argento and Globo d'oro, David di Donatello , Ciak d'oro, the Gian Maria Volonté Award, the Coppa Volpi, the Le maschere del Teatro Italiano Award and the Anct / Poesio Award for Lifetime Achievement.
He has written and directed the plays La abducción de Luis Guzmán, 40 años de paz, Barbados, etcétera, El tratamiento, Los mariachis, Doña Rosita, anotada, Los farsantes, and Barbados en 2022. His works have premiered in theaters such as Pavón Kamikaze, Teatro Valle-Inclán and Teatros del Canal in Madrid, as well as to participating in the Festival de Otoño de la Comunidad de Madrid and FIBA in Buenos Aires. He has won awards such as the Lope de Vega and the Jardiel Poncela. In 2021 he received the Premio Nacional de Literatura Dramática. As a screenwriter, he has written several feature films, including Casual Day, No sé decir adiós, and Intemperie. He has received the 2020 Goya Award for Best Non-Original Screenplay, the Julio Alejandro Award for Ibero-American Screenplay, and the Silver Biznaga for Best Screenplay at the Malaga Film Festival on two occasions. He has directed award-winning short films at some of Spain's most important festivals and has written series for television such as Vamos Juan, Venga Juan and La Ruta. He has been a guest speaker at New York University, the Primer Congreso Iberoamericano de Escritores Cinematográficos and Euroimágenes in Colombia, among others. From 2011 to 2019, he coordinated the Diploma in Screenwriting at ECAM. In 2019 he was a member of the jury of the Princesa de Asturias de las Letras Award. His works are published from La uÑa RoTa, in three volumes: Abductions (2018) includes all works made with the company La_Abducción, up to 2018; his subsequent works are collected in two volumes: Ghosts (2020) and Los Farsantes (2022).
Francesca Botti in 2001 graduated as an actress from the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art in Milan. She began her working activity at Teatro Litta and Teatro del Buratto in Milan, in several Children's Theater productions. In 2014 he participated in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with "The Cut Tuk Show." He has collaborated with Teatro La Piccionaia - I Carrara in Vicenza, Teatro Franco Parenti in Milan, Teatro Nuovo and Babiloniateatri in Verona. With Teatro Stabile del Veneto she works in 2011 in "Elektra" by Hugo von Hofmannsthal with Elisabetta Pozzi, directed by Carmelo Rifici; from 2015 to 2017 she is in "La Cativissima I and II" by and with Natalino Balasso; from 2017 to 2019 she works in "Le Baruffe Chiozzotte" by Carlo Goldoni, directed by Paolo Valerio. From 2019 to 2020 she is an actress in "Jezabel" by Irene Nemirovsky, directed by Paolo Valerio, Teatro Stabile di Verona. In 2022 she is assistant director and actress in Marco Zoppello's "Harlequin Dumb for Fright," production Stivalaccio Teatro. She produces, writes and performs her own monologues of comedy theater, song theater and narrative theater.
Born in 1982, to Legnago. In 2007 he graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia to Rome and from that time he worked to theater, television, film with, among others, Andrée Ruth Shammah, Pupi Avati, Nanni Moretti, Ettore Scola, Paolo Virzì, Massimo Venier. Also a playwright, 2018, with Buon anno Ragazzi, he won the Erriquez prize for dramaturgy, and in 2019, with Per Strada, he was nominated as best new Italian play at the Maschere del Teatro.
Born in 1997, she has been working as an actress for film, television and theater since 2001. She made her film debut in 2008 to alongside Nanni Moretti in the film Caos Calmo, then starred in Piuma presento in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Likemeback presented at the Locarno Film Festival and then El Nido an Italian-Argentine horror film presented at the Trieste Science Film Festival. In 2019 he served on the jury for the short films of Alice Nella Città, a section linked to the Rome Film Festival. In 2021 he is on stage with the play Landfill by S. Spada. In 2022 he closes the set of Resvrgis and opens the set of a new series produced from Palomar. In 2023 he is in theaters with Nanni Moretti's latest film, Il Sol dell'Avvenire, presented to Cannes. He began to studying acting at the age of nine with theater companies, to eleven with Actors' Studio members such as Doris Hicks, Michael Margotta, Jack Waltzer, Cloe Xaufflaire, Lidia Vitale and Mary Setrakian for singing. She follows the philosophy and work of international schools such as the Susan Batson Studio in New York and Estudio Cor raza in Madrid. Meanwhile, to March 2022 he graduates from Dams developing an in-depth study of film writing that he is sending forth in creating a play that debuts to May 2023, short films and two feature films. Aiming for a better world he uses his image by supporting and promoting social causes such as in the case of FAI and Every Child Is My Child.
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