Director’s Note

 

I have been talking about this performance for years.

 

As a young man, I studied theatre and contemporary dance, and even then, while reading Raffaele Viviani’s texts, I was struck by the extraordinary relevance of the themes he explored. I performed characters such as Don Nicola, Fravecature, ’O Malamente, Prezzetella ’a Capera, and many other male and female figures drawn from his plays. My fascination with Viviani’s work continued to grow until I felt an almost inevitable need to bring his plays, poems, and songs to the stage through the language of dance.

 

Raffaele Viviani’s vast body of work, with its remarkable portraits of ordinary people, embraces a wide range of themes, and it is from these that our performance takes shape. A succession of vivid tableaux, flowing into one another like communicating vessels, without interruption: labour and craftsmanship, the underworld of guappi (local gangsters) and prostitutes, theatre within the theatre, culminating in a final, entirely original scene.

 

Through the bodies and voices of the performers, we seek to portray the contemporary reality of our city. For me, this project has become an exploration of what it truly means to be Neapolitan. What is this way of being that is so often reduced to postcard clichés—cheerful people, fragrant air, endless sunshine? A people waiting for events that will bring change, desperately seeking transformation through the political and social institutions that organise our collective life.

 

A people endowed with extraordinary positive energy, yet often lacking a sense of belonging to the State and to the common good; a people suspended in expectation, rarely considering that meaningful change begins with each individual, with ourselves, as we strive to overcome social inequalities and bring the urgent needs of contemporary civic life to the forefront.

 

A people who continue to live while waiting for a miracle…