When I get to the canto about Paolo and Francesca, who are blown back and forth on the wind unable to touch each other, just because they fell in love, a lump forms in my throat. I think about Monica, and all of us in here separated from the ones we love. One on either side of a wall, we breathlessly squeeze each other’s hands. Every inmate is Paolo with his Francesca, and love is something we can only remember with regret, in the windswept silence of our own hell.
I feel the pain rising, and with it a rage so great that I wish I had Dante right here in front of me so I could tell him a thing or two about life.
No, my dear Dante, I’m not going into one of your circles of hell. I’ve done all sorts of things in my life, so I’d like to see where you’d decide to put me. You’d stick me in one circle, and then you’d realise that I fit better in another, and then in another one again…And once I’d done the rounds of all your circles, you know where I belong, Dante? Outside.
‘Don Pasquale, do you think it’s a problem that I used to talk to my dead mother of an evening, but now I talk to Dante?’ I give my coffee a stir.
‘Dante who?’ I can see him trying to bring to mind an inmate by the name of Dante.
‘Dante Alighieri.’
‘What, the poet?’ he asks, wide-eyed.
‘Er…’ I stare at my coffee for a moment because I’m embarrassed. ‘I’ve started reading The Divine Comedy and there’s something that just doesn’t sit right with me.’
‘Something that doesn’t sit right with you? Sasà, look at me,’ he says in a worried tone. ‘Could it be that you’re feeling guilty?’
‘Guilty? Me? What for?’
‘Maybe for placing bets on the dead.’
I’m startled. The man never leaves his cell, yet don Pasquale always knows everything.
‘You know you shouldn’t, Sasà,’ he adds sternly.
‘But don Pasquale, it’s just a social thing…’ I mumble, but I do feel guilty. At the moment in Naples there’s an ugly turf war going on between the Camorra clans, and each day we place bets on who will be the next person to get taken out. When we watch the evening news, the winner is whoever guessed right, and last night I won two ice-creams.
‘It’s disrespectful. Towards the dead and towards those who suffer,’ don Pasquale says reproachfully. ‘Maybe that’s why you’re feeling guilty. Your problem’s not with Dante, but with your own conscience.’
‘Don Pasquale, you’re right that I shouldn’t make those bets, and I won’t do it anymore,’ I reply. ‘But you’re wrong about Dante, and I say that with respect. My problem with Dante is that he gets God all mangled.’
‘Sasà, what are you saying?’ he thunders. He can’t abide blasphemy. But I’m convinced of what I’m talking about and I have to make him understand.
‘No, really. It’s like Dante’s interrogating me as I read. He asks me all my sins and makes me name them like I’m in confession. But he doesn’t offer any divine mercy, don Pasquale. He doesn’t follow the laws of God.’ I’m venting, getting more and more heated. ‘He makes me confess and then he tells me I have to suffer, burn, perish. And that’s not right.’
My cell neighbour looks at me long and hard, then shakes his head.
‘Sasà, maybe you need to start taking all this reading a bit less personally,’ he says. ‘Let me have a think about another poet to recommend to you. In the meantime, do you have anything else to read in your cell, so you can put Dante to one side for a bit?’
‘I did have The Godfather but I’ve finished it. Good story, but nothing we don’t already know, don Pasquale.’ I hesitate for a moment. ‘I’ve got a play by this English guy…’
‘And what’s the name of this English guy?’
‘His name is Shakespeare.’ I’ve been seeing it on the table for so long I’ve even learned how to spell it, and I try to reproduce Cavalli’s pronunciation. ‘William Shakespeare. Cavalli, the theatre director, reckons this Tempest play of his is about us.’
Don Pasquale nods. ‘Cavalli is right, Sasà. The Tempest is all about us.’
Meanwhile, though, at our theatre meetings, Shakespeare’s name hasn’t come up again. Cavalli has given up the fight; he knows we want to do more De Filippo. And besides, if we don’t, what will we say to his wife, Donna Isabella? She became so fond of us after Napoli milionaria that she gave us some of the furniture from the original performance. When Luca De Filippo put the play on at the Teatro Argentina, he had to get a whole new set because we had the original! Donna Isabella gave us the bed and also the dressing table where Eduardo used to get ready. She even gave me the scarf I wore over my head as Donna Amalia, and I keep it like a treasure. We’re men of principle, we have rules, we have values and we won’t betray Eduardo De Filippo. We’re thinking about our next play—together we’ve read I Won’t Pay You and Mayor of Sanità Alley; it’s hard to decide on one, but we’re full of ideas.
Then one day Cavalli gathers us all in the theatre, not the rehearsal room. There before us is Luca De Filippo. We haven’t seen him since the night we performed Napoli milionaria.
‘First of all I want to reiterate how much I admire your work,’ he begins. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I came to see Napoli milionaria as a gesture of solidarity, because you’d chosen one of my father’s plays. And I left greatly taken aback. You’re actors. Real actors.’
This is true for some more than others, but hearing it from the son of the great Eduardo De Filippo opens our hearts. But is it possible he’s come here several weeks later just to compliment us on our performance? And that’s when he knocks us out with what he has to say.
‘But now you have a problem,’ he goes on. ‘A serious problem.’
Huh?
‘What problem do we have, if you don’t mind us asking?’ I chime in. ‘We want to do another De Filippo play—don’t you like the idea?’
‘Of course I like the idea…You fill me with pride,’ he says, smiling. ‘And my father will be the happiest man in the world if he’s looking down at us from the stars above. But I want to tell you a story. When I was fifteen, sixteen years old, I spent all my time around my father because I’d already decided I wanted to work in theatre, too. I wanted to dedicate my life to it. And that is how, through my father, I got to know Shakespeare.’
‘What, the English guy?’ is the general mumble around the room. ‘So Eduardo De Filippo knew him too? But hasn’t he been dead a bunch of centuries?’
‘That’s the one,’ Luca nods. ‘My father was a great fan of Shakespeare. As a son, I feel so honoured to see the respect and affection you have for my father. But as an artist, and because I want to see you grow, I have to tell you that to become the great Eduardo De Filippo, there was a point in my father’s career when he turned to the works of Shakespeare.’
‘With all due respect,’ a voice booms from behind me, and I recognise it immediately as the Poet’s, ‘you’re not just trying to flatter us, are you? Because you’re so keen to make us like this Shapesgear?’
‘No, that’s not it, and I can prove it,’ De Filippo says resolutely.
‘Prove it?’
‘Yes.’ And he pulls another of those bundles of pages from his bag, with the smile of a poker player putting down straight aces. ‘You see, the only play by another person that my father ever worked on was The Tempest.’
‘Did he translate it from English into Italian?’ I ask. After talking to don Pasquale I had started reading the script in secret, in my cell, but I didn’t realise De Filippo translated the play, too…
‘He translated it into seventeenth-century Neapolitan dialect.’ Luca De Filippo nods. ‘Very few people know this, and nobody has ever staged it. My father died before he was able to do so himself.’
‘And why haven’t you, his son, ever done it?’ Fabio Cavalli asks. He and Luca have clearly prepared this question beforehand.
‘Eduardo’s wife, Isabella, preferred that I didn’t,’ Luca says a little sadly. ‘But I’ve asked her and she says she
would give you permission. She would give you the rights to stage Shakespeare’s The Tempest in Eduardo De Filippo’s Neapolitan translation.’ And he thumps the bundle of pages, grabbing everybody’s attention. It is as though the spirit of Eduardo De Filippo himself was emanating from those pages. ‘Shakespeare died shortly after writing this play,’ Luca adds in a pensive voice. ‘And my father, likewise, was never able to see it performed. You can do it, for him. Your performance would be a world premiere.’
A world premiere in a prison. You don’t need to be as cultured as don Pasquale to realise that would be amazing. We all fall silent. Not even Cavalli speaks, leaving us to take in the dramatic effect.
‘Well, if we’re sure it would be fine with him…’ Cosimo ventures. ‘With De Filippo, I mean…that we wouldn’t be showing him any disrespect…’
Luca De Filippo bursts out laughing, releasing some of the tension that had built up with his revelation about The Tempest.
‘You guys are great,’ he says. ‘And, on behalf of my father, I thank you. Trust me, you’re embracing Shakespeare. My father will be happy.’
Now that we’ve resolved the problem of the code of honour, I must say I’m happy, too. When I started reading The Tempest I realised something. We love Eduardo, but he’s inadvertently making our situation worse. He writes about our world, and he makes family tragedies familiar in a way that is immediately comprehensible to us. Whereas Shakespeare…Reading him was like diving into a body of water when I couldn’t even see the bottom. It was like diving into something bigger than I’ve ever encountered before.
We allowed Eduardo into our group, and he became our leader. But in doing that we were locking ourselves up again. Forming another gang. It was just another way never to come out. This is what Cavalli meant when he tried to present Shakespeare to us: ‘Theatre allows you to face up to your feelings.’ Feelings, not situations.
‘All right, then,’ I say, to whittle away any remaining resistance. ‘Let’s put on Eduardo’s Tempest, not Shakespeare’s.’
This gets everyone in agreement. And ‘Shakes-Beer’ is officially accepted.
However, I now have a problem. And I don’t want to leave here without resolving it. ‘Fabio, that script you left with me the other day, I read it a bit,’ I begin. Cosimo gives me a dirty look, as if I’d somehow exploited an unfair advantage. ‘I know you were happy with the way I played Donna Amalia but…you’re not going to want me to play Miranda in this new show, are you? Because it’s one thing to be a good actor, but I really don’t think I’d be at my best playing a young virgin in love.’
They all burst out laughing and Fabio reassures me. ‘I might be able to get a woman to sign up for the role of Miranda,’ he says.
‘A real woman? In here?’ An uproar ensues and it’s hard to tell if people are more attracted or frightened by the idea.
‘You guys are good, but that role is too important,’ says Fabio. ‘No one among you is so amazing an actor as to be able to carry it off. Sasà, you’ve read the play. Which role would you like?’ I know he’s asking me in order to get people fully accustomed to the idea that we’re putting on The Tempest. Once we start assigning roles, it’s a done deal. That’s fine with me, as I already know which role I want.
I begin, ‘Well, actually, I—’ but Cosimo cuts me off.
‘Sasà would be perfect as one of the servants,’ he says resolutely.
‘What, Stephano and Trinculo?’ Cavalli is astonished. ‘But they’re minor roles! You want to give such a small part to the best actor in the company?’
‘Fine then, let him play Prospero!’ replies Cosimo, offended.
‘No way!’ I intervene, trying to placate everybody. I already know all too well that Cosimo will want to play Prospero, the sorcerer, the great leader. I can understand it, and frankly I couldn’t care less because that’s not what I’m interested in. ‘Ariel’s the one I like.’
‘You want to play Ariel? Why’s that?’ Cavalli is intrigued.
‘He seems strong. I like the way he clutches at freedom. He becomes so servile because he has one goal: his freedom, which is what each of us in here values most highly.’ It is something I’ve thought about a lot.
‘It’s decided, then,’ says Cavalli, ignoring the fact that Cosimo is white with rage. ‘You’ll be Ariel.’ Those words almost sound like magic. Something tells me that our little theatre company has changed in a flash: we’ve upped the ante. And I imagine I can feel in my ear, like a passing breeze, the crystalline laugh of the spirit of the air. Or could it even be Shakespeare I hear?
8
‘Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity’
Elena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act I, Scene I
‘The thing about you is, you’ve got no shame. You’re shameless. You’re brazen.’
I can’t blame Bennett. After visiting the library so often for weeks, I managed to drag him into the theatre group. He gave me a great gift, and continues to do so every day: he’s helping me discover the magic of books, lending me the ones he thinks I might like and keeping me away from others. In exchange, I decided to give him a taste of magic, too. The magic of the stage. But Cosimo has given him the role of Stephano, and he’s puzzled.
‘Read through all the lines and then we can talk about it,’ I suggest, and then I go and rehearse my scene with Prospero, where I first ask him for my freedom. I wonder how long it will be till I stop feeling a lump in my throat every time I say that word. A word that doesn’t belong to me.
What Bennett says is true: I’ve got no shame when I perform. Why not? It’s something I realised when I got up on stage in front of an audience, when the lights went up and I saw their eyes. When I heard their applause. For the first time in my life I was being recognised for something good. For something I could be proud of, instead of something negative, something wrong, something criminal. It was like a revolution. I finally understood how much shame I’d felt before, deep down. It was like breaking a chain.
Now that I’m Ariel, I’m no longer ashamed of myself.
It’s different for the others. It’s not so easy for them to get into character. Some can’t manage it at all. Especially the Calabrians and the Apulians. They’re really tense, and barely open their mouths. It’s almost impossible for them to get inside a character’s head. They have constant problems delivering their lines.
‘But why do I have to insult him? I don’t use that kind of language!’
‘It’s not you saying it. It’s the character!’
The short circuit between Shakespeare and the Calabrian code of conduct risks derailing the entire show. And let’s not even talk about the Sicilians.
‘“You are men of sin!” If you want to escape the “lingering perdition”, the “wraths” about to be unleashed on you, you have repent and live honestly!’ I declaim passionately, addressing the actors playing Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. I’m standing on top of one of the bunk beds that we’re using as a set and they’re looking up at me in astonishment. They’ve been convicted of murder, drug trafficking and Mafia association.
They throw their scripts on the ground.
‘Sasà, what are you saying? We’re supposed to repent?’ Lello, who is playing Antonio, has got his hackles up.
‘Poor Sasà, first they make you play a chick, and now an infame…’ Daniele, who’s playing Alonso, is sympathetic. ‘But we’re not playing infami, we’re not naming names!’
‘Nobody has to name names,’ I explain patiently.
‘Look, if you’re going to repent you have to name names, that’s the way it works,’ Lello explains equally patiently.
Of course! For them, pentito—someone who repents—is a dirty word. For them a pentito is someone who collaborates with police, naming former associates in exchange for a lighter sentence.
‘I meant “repent” in the sense of repenting for what you’ve done, I didn’t mean collaborating with the poli
ce…You can’t tell me you haven’t repented, that you’re not still repenting for what happened in the past? Don’t you feel anything holding this in your hand?’ I wave their scripts around passionately.
‘Oh, repent in that sense…’ Lello mumbles. They take back their scripts but I can see they’re still not really convinced.
Cosimo is the one who should be taking care of this, after he’s head of the company, but the point is they come to me with these sorts of problems. They rely on me because I’m the most easygoing, the most positive, and also the only one who has already memorised his lines, and not just my own but sometimes theirs as well. They come to me when they don’t know how to deliver a line, when they need help with the complexities of the plot, or how to play their role. Or when they simply don’t want to play their role.
‘I don’t want to play a drunk,’ Bennett insists, and this time Renatino, who is supposed to be playing Trinculo, joins in. ‘Neither do I,’ he adds.
They look at me belligerently and hand me their scripts, which I take without a word. I feel like saying ‘Okay, leave then. If you don’t get it, go back to your cells.’ I can’t solve all the company’s problems, and Cosimo gets resentful when he sees the others confiding in me.
But what would Ariel do? Ariel wouldn’t leave them on the beach alone. Ariel goes and speaks to these two men: after all, he’s the one who unleashed the tempest.
I take them aside.
‘Guys, do you understand who Stephano and Trinculo are?’
‘They’re a couple of drunks,’ says Bennett, a teetotaller, in a tone of deep disapproval. ‘Two stupid idiots on a crazy bender.’
‘Huh,’ I nod, choosing not to contradict them. ‘But have you thought about the kind of life they’d been leading? On that ship, they were stuck down in the hold, locked up. Above deck were these noblemen, these dukes, who would only call on them so they could order them about. Then when the tempest is unleashed, and the ship is wrecked, in these guys’ heads, right, it’s a storm for everybody else, but for them it’s a party. On the ship they were servants but when they make it onto the island, that means freedom!’
Set Me Free Page 8
