“Servo per Due”
by and with Pierfrancesco Favino

Extraordinary, irresistible, fresh, amusing:
Pierfrancesco Favino enchants audiences and critics with his first work as a director at the theater, actor and director from proposing a surprising reinterpretation of Arlecchino’s “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni adaptation of the play by Richard Bean, “One man, two Guvnors “, mixing with the eclecticism dialect tradition and culture of our country, including vaudeville and updated, songs and calls to the historical period between the great wars.

“It all started about a year ago when a group of about 40 people we took a small Roman theater being able to stage 29 shows in two months in the exhibition REP“, tells us fresh by Hollywood performances (see directed by Ron Howard in “Rush” in the role of Clay Regazzoni – Ed.)
“This group of people has the ambition with me to become a traveling theater company itself, and together with Marco Balsamo a few years ago I discussed the idea to make a play.
I was in London for work and went to see the spectacle of Bean: I was abducted, with Paul Sassanelli decided to propose it, setting it in the ’30s.
The 60s original English we would not be allowed as many historical possibilities: first of all we all have characters who pretend to be what they are not in substance, and run away, then there is the city of the sea, which is crucial in the tradition of Italian cinema (see Fellini), a Rimini in April, location from ” I Vitelloni”.
From the early months of 2013 we have studied to assemble this show, including seminars acrobatic gymnastics, workshops and many trials”

In fact, the group of actors Danny Rose participated in workshops Acrobatic Arts e Use of mask, the Clown in and Singing among others.
“This project aims to be the first of a repertory company that wants to do business. We’re totally private as well as all artists are aware that our work is absolutely inconsistent. You cannot spend months looking at the phone waiting for it to ring, you have to get busy, the arts and life in general. We have all sacrificed in equal measure, paid the same and so on. And we are 27!
We want to offer the classics in a different way, as in the case of the events of Harlequin: the theater is something unique and primordial love and sacrifice.
The theater, which survives today, and the few for the few. And what do we approach to the public and to its true spirit and life. We want a theater that takes into account the viewer part of the creative process. In short, we want to be a popular theater performed by actors who have decided to abandon the logic of traditional products, to serve as the company enlarged the repertoire: REP. ”

With this novel Arlecchino vivacity on stage is impressive and lives by the many twists and turns (three hours duration of the show, which literally fly off between guffaws and music), Favino tells of this Pippo, a forerunner of freelance and at the same time like the cunning charlatan, who has just lost his job and finds himself depressed, without money and without the possibility of being able to eat. Soon, driven by obsession with food, you’ll end up serving two different masters, so finding a way to double wages and meals.
One is Rocco, little thug North Rimini to collect a substantial sum after concluding a deal with Bartolo father of his girlfriend Clarice, and the other is Lodovico, who was also known criminal.

And among misunderstanding, cunning scenic and cheers loudly ripped the value of the theater of Goldoni after centuries lives on in its historical dimension and in its realism:
“Goldoni is crucial as they are in the theater or Shakespeare D’Annunzio: the popular tradition of Italian comedy can not be separated from Goldoni, and belong to us any more than we know. If I look at “The usual suspects” I see him again in the loudmouth Gassman.
Popular culture in the theater resides in Goldoni, and is still contemporary. The plots have changed, but the characters and figures have always existed. Toto is no different from Harlequin, if we think about it. ”

Even improvisation, primary in this show from the relationship with the audience, is a tribute to Goldoni’s canovaccio: “This requires great flexibility on our part, which in turn requires that each of us put the show before the own performance, which is a cultural leap that we are still not too used to in Italy. For this show has done a great job of translating and adapting the time when we wanted to set it. The comedy was then adapted to our culture: there are musical interludes that dominate, with historical songs of years ago, those of the Carousel and popular culture, references to avanspettacolo  and rivista genres and to a type of theatrical cultural tradition that but it is full of musical movements and music, dance and choreography.
Every day, show after show we refine our performance.
And it’s all designed to the smallest detail, even the improvisations »

Cinema and theater for Favino, then?
“Do not give up either of them, and not because of artistic bulimia, but for completeness staff. Everything is evolving day by day. This is a very special moment when you have to get busy, including acting, directing and producing in my casso particular.
For an actor, the theater is incredible: the result at the box office is not always a guarantee of quality, while the theater is inexorable and justifies many things. If you do not make on stage, you can not take advantage of the assembly, EPR example. An actor who makes theater can make movies, but not always the opposite is true.
I haven’t been on stage for a long time: it’s my world, I feel I belong. After months of work on behalf of a show to see how it actually works is a great joy. ”

Pierfrancesco, formerly directed by giants of cinema nationally and internationally, by Ron Howard Placido, Soldini, Ozpetek, Sollima eMontaldo, confesses a particular fondness for
Paolo Sorrentino and Virzi, and recounts his adventures abroad:
“I’m Italian, my language and my culture from here. I was lucky enough to be out of the house to go to London as a teenager I did not know a word, and I had to learn. My English is very good, yes, but look for a more important role should improve it.
It ‘s all different, culturally we are still not too used to seeing the Italian that reads in English. We used to see Bruce Willis saves the world, not Mastroianni. We tend to meet again in something that looks like, then not Brad Pitt, but perhaps more different characters, closer to us. ”

How do an actor of that caliber look  at the situation of the arts in our country today?
“The brand news Decree of the Minister of Culture Maximum Bray sounds very good on paper. We must make sure that it works. One can not speak of a crisis in a particular field of art, it is the general crisis. The problem is that it fails to take root, culture in general, people who for decades have been unaccustomed to love and accustomed to a socio-political situation that has bilateral responsibility: that Italians can give value to a museum, a concert or a play?
You have to start from scratch to reform the public, because in my opinion the one that still stands is the one that comes from the art for personal or family reasons. I would be willing to turn the Italian schools if I had proposed to speak of the art of narrative: this is what must be taught to young people, the art of narrating and its modes, from cinema to photography for example. And without marginalizing the real preferences of young people. Assassin’s Creed, the video game, would not exist if it were not for theatrical characters like Hamlet, and in these projects work unbelievably contemporary artists in the fields of concept art and illustration very close to our children.
You have to make them understand the roots of their passions.
With the iPhone in your pocket have the opportunity to tell their own. They are individuals, not numbers.
The audience was left to die, and it was agreed to so many people. ”

It relies on a film less self-absorbed and more relevant to reality:
“The world always seems even stranger during the Festival of the industry. Gossip and red carpet excluded seems to live a little attention from the general media, in spite of the large flow of colleagues present, very little relationship to reality:
It ‘a little’ a world that speaks to himself, again because people are not accustomed to the Festival. If someone decides to put a TV character on the front page instead of Elio Germano, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes there is a reason: someone has realized that sells more because it was decided to set the culture on the gossip and not on the rest .
The response of the film is often to say, the world does not consider me ok? Well, I address myself.
But nobody needs that the film journalist face to race with colleagues to grab interviews or press office and actors live in a world far from reality believed to be the first women during festivals, for example.
and let’s face it: it all depends on how much money you move. If Brad Pitt is an interview ends up on the cover because the economic power that moves the underlying interest is immeasurable.
It should be said that, for our part, take up the full extent of the people. Monicelli said to go by metro to understand how people talk.
Well, read on many screenplays today it seems that they do not speak like real people. ”

Fantastic director and performer so unpredictable and fascinating to bring the public’s attention on his next moves, Pierfrancesco Favino bean surrounds himself with good attendance on which stands the tireless Ugo Dighero, including deceptions, misunderstandings, verbal comedy and awesome live music of ‘orchestra Music Closet.
Best theatrical comedy of the year in Italy, and maybe more.

Related Images: