Video

Snapshots from the direction of Ferdinando Ceriani

This is the final year for many of the kids who have been with us for a long time. We are on the threshold of a new generational shift. For the first time, we've decided to stage a single play (with appropriate cuts). This is a new experience that requires a change in our work methodology and in the way our students learn. Dario Fo's comedy and music lend a helping hand—many of the students are experiencing his work for the first time. The pairing of Fo and Luiss is intriguing. In fact, a RAITRE crew will follow us throughout the year for a special that will air on Rosanna Cancellieri’s program “Chi è di scena.”

Adapted by Ferdinando Ceriani

Assistant director: Alice Guidi

Directed by Ferdinando Ceriani and Carla Ferraro

Music by Nino Rota, Fiorenzo Carpi, Dario Fo, and Goran Bregovic

June 3-5, 2008, 9:00 PM

LUISS Guido Carli, University Gardens, Viale Pola, 12 - Rome

This year, the final performance of the 2007–2008 theater workshop introduces a significant change: the students are staging a single play rather than a collage of texts, as was the case in previous years. This is a significant and challenging decision, marking another step forward in our educational approach. It requires the actors to adhere to a singular interpretation, rhythm, and musicality, as agreed upon with the director, and to maintain these consistently from start to finish. Furthermore, this year, we wanted to tackle a contemporary, living author—one of the most important on our cultural scene—Dario Fo, and his play, Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe, written in 1963 and premiered at the Teatro Odeon in Milan that same year. In a narrative structure entirely built around the concept of theater within theater, we follow the adventures of a troupe of actors who stage a play about Christopher Columbus, all while trying to buy time to save the life of their leader, who has been condemned by the Inquisition. Christopher Columbus is in Spain, attempting to realize his utopia: to circumnavigate the globe from the west and reach the Indies. This dream leads him to encounter a whole gallery of grotesque characters who, disturbingly, mirror modern stereotypes. Their motto is to corrupt and deceive, and Columbus soon conforms, ultimately falling victim to his own thirst for power. This text, which I have reworked for the occasion, serves as a metaphor for our modern society. Set within a framework of farce and popular celebration, it paints a clear picture of the ills of our time, where, much like in medieval carnival festivities, vices become virtues and vice versa. I’d like to wrap up with a thought: who knows what Fo would have thought back in 1963 if he’d been told that his play would be performed in 2008 at an institution like LUISS, a place that’s light years away from his political scene? I see it as a beautiful, positive sign that shows how those moral and ethical concerns expressed by Fo can now be shared, without hysteria or extremism, by society as a whole, no longer divided by insurmountable ideological barriers. It's a note of optimism expressed in our last civic agora: the theater.

Students | Leading actors

• Eugenia Barone
• Francesca Berti
• Valentina Betrò
• Michelania Campagnuolo
• Chiara Civitelli
• Sara Conallo
• Giovanni Cordì
• Marco Cozzolino Coletta
• Giuseppe Di Paola
• Carmelo Dragotta
• Margherita Ercolini
• Edoardo Faraci
• Gianluca Fasano
• Luciana Feo
• Valeria Flagiello
• Claudia Fogli
• Andrea Gagliano
• Mariarosaria Galletta
• Giuseppe Gugliellmino
• Virginia Gullotta
• Giuseppe Labate
• Alberto Landi
• Giuseppe Lo Papa
• Sergio Montanino
• Claudia Monti
• Lina Neri
• Simone Oddo
• Valerio Pilia
• Giovanna Priori
• Antonio Rinaldi
• Daria Rizzotto
• Federico Roli
• Francesca Salituro
• Luca Sigot
• Désirée Tortorici
• Alessandro Tribulato