Umberto Orsini rereads Nathalie Sarraute and saves himself (and the theatre)

When, about ten years ago, he founded the company that bears his name, Umberto Orsini probably did not think of saving the theatre, in crisis like so many other arts. He simply wanted to “save” himself and the idea of ​​work that he has always loved and practiced. He was moved, as he himself explained, by a “deep desire to add to my name a series of people with whom I have already worked or with whom I always wanted to work and to pass on to them all my passion, my experience and the persistent desire for research and quality that has guided my artistic life through a serious professional preparation”. A permanent laboratory, “on the model of my master Luca Ronconi”. And without simplifications. Because you don’t serve art by meeting the ever less refined tastes of the public, but by betting on quality, novelty, and even personal enjoyment. So when at the end of 2021 he thought of staging a comedy by Nathalie Sarraute, Pour un oui or pour un nonpractically unknown in Italy (the comedy is unknown, but – alas – I fear the writer as well) I’m almost certain that she didn’t expect the resounding success – it’s not a hyperbole – that awaited her. Instead, it has been touring Italy for more than a year, filling the halls of large and small theaters with thunderous acclaim from critics and the public. In Milan, at the Grassi, the pièce was repeated last January, at the Piccinni in Bari and at the Stabile di Napoli in February, in Rome – at the Argentina theater – from 20 February to 5 March and now the tour is continuing. After La Spezia it will be repeated in Venice in mid-April. Of course it is supported by an exceptional trio from our theatre: the protagonists are Franco Branciaroli and Umberto Orsini, and Pier Luigi Pizzi directs the sets and costumes. And now let me tell you that if Branciaroli only dates from 1947, Orsini has just turned eighty-nine, while Pizzi will turn ninety-three in June. In honor of age, culture, experience, genius.