Lina Sastri: “Theatre is freedom in an increasingly fake world”

If Federico García Lorca had seen his ‘Blood Wedding’ at the Teatro Grande of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, on June 23 and 24 directed by Lluís Pasqual, would have certified the appearance of the duende, the mysterious inner demon that rises from the earth, the fluid that possesses the interpreter and is not the result of simple expertise. You have it or you don’t have it, as they know better than all the bullfighters and flamenco artists of Andalusia, the country “open to death” where the duende “squeezes lemons at dawn” (Anlena Benini wrote about it in the Foglio del May 9, 2020).

Lina Sastri she is both the old mother and the young bride in the scenic reduction made by Pasqual, almost a dreamlike tale in which she reveals that duende that some Neapolitans have kept from the Spanish viceroyalty and others have dispersed due to successive influences of history, arousing the severe annoyance of García Lorca (who rejected “‘Oi Marì!” as a “horrible song”).

What is the thread that unites Sastri interpreter of García Lorca to that of Euripides’ ‘Medea’? How do you move between Naples, Andalusia and Greece?

It’s always the South that resembles each other in its ruthlessness. They are mysteries and tragedies, passions and vendettas that we have known for millennia, female destinies of love and blood. The same dust of madness that captures us and from which we seek escape. In ‘Blood Wedding’ it was tiring to play both the mother and the bride, but the important thing in life is not to always do things you already know how to do. It’s good to test yourself.

Theater and film actress, singer. “Poliedrica” is an easy adjective-refuge. How to define it better?

A free artist, who brings a little of the other worlds into every world. I’m not a singer in the purest sense, but an actress who looks for the color and flavor of the notes through the arrangements she decides. It is from the theater that I learned the rule, the love of studying, which allows one to realize one’s personal intuition. To succeed, one must have the courage to remain faithful to her and bring her to the scene as it was born in her mind.

Is being true to yourself more a bond or an act of freedom?

It’s freedom. The one that I have always found on stage and that is much more difficult for me in life, where so many fragilities and fears prevail.

Do you miss your youth?

Yes, if by youth we mean the desire to contravene impositions, to be rather than have, that intimate lightness that belongs to the air, to the sea. On the other hand, I don’t regret youth understood as a market good that you never want to abandon, that of many kids today who don’t want to change anything but stay where they are and prefer the convenience of remaining children to the responsibility of becoming men. Sadly, Household Rules no longer offer great references.

If you hadn’t started with the theater very early, what would you have liked?

Being a wife and mother.

To his mother, who died of Alzheimer’s, he dedicated a book that is becoming a film with the same title: ‘La casa di Ninetta’. When it comes out?

We are completing the processing. It is a simple work, done in a short time and on a small budget. My first direction, maybe naive, but naivety can also be a virtue. I would like the satisfaction of seeing the film and being told it’s not that bad.

What professional satisfaction do you remember with more pleasure?

I have little awareness of satisfactions. I have ambitions to get them, but the next moment I tend to forget them because I feel they are dangerous. I prefer to have little memory.

Perhaps because she also claims that “time does not exist”.

It’s like a straight line where we walk but on which, seen from above, we are together at the same time, who are born, who grow up and then who abandon this body. In a kind of absolute dimension.

How much does the perception of time change in the digital age?

The passions are always the same, but the more we go on the more I see a real solitude in the midst of the fake friendships that multiply on electronic devices in the vain search for footholds. What a shame, we’re leveling ourselves to the worst.

What is true friendship like?

Sincerity: when you want to say something to a person and you do, when you can treat them badly because they know you love them. Love does not offer equal freedom. But both are hard to find.

Is love a mermaid?

Her song can be dangerous because maybe it’s heartless and if you become enthralled by it you may even discover that the siren wanted to enthrall everyone, not just you. So maybe she never loved you.

Partenope Naples so enchants?

It is an extraordinary city because it has the sea inside. Is it trivial to say that if you leave the house to do the shopping, around the corner, you can find the gulf in front of you? The sea is just a few meters from the Royal Palace, but it is very democratic: even the poor could go down to swim.

Tired city?

Because it never leaves you alone. Up until seven, eight years ago I was afraid to pass through the Spanish Quarters in the evening, now it’s full of tourists, there’s more work, if you leave the windows open the voices reach you and sometimes annoy you, but it’s preferable to the sensation that gives me Rome. Before, arriving from Naples I felt freer. Now it seems more deserted, saddened.

She performed at the stadium for the Napoli championship. Excited?

Very. By now football is the only passion that truly unites, much more than politics and religions.