«Viva Viviani», preview at the Modernissimo in Naples

The recomposition develops starting from his work, which marks a clear discontinuity with the previous theater and introduces deeply innovative characters and elements. The texts by him, which he sets in the alleys and squares of Naples, are full of street people who act as a universal metaphor. Following an ideal thread between past and present, the portrait of a multifaceted and original artist emerges and of a contradictory city, scene of the world.

Produced by Nephila Film, with the contribution of the Campania RegionCampania Region Film Commission and Ministry of Culture, the work enriched by the precious archives of the Cineteca di Bologna, Rai, the Eye Museum, the unpublished letters of Raffaele to his wife Maria, and the testimonies of important exponents of the world of national culture and international related to the work of Viviani, such as Alfredo Arias, Mimmo Borrelli, Davide Iodice, Mario Martone, Nello Mascia, Toni Servillo, Giuliano Longone Viviani, Valentina Venturini.

the greatest author of the twentieth century, one of the largest in Europe, begins Borrelli. For Martone there is a great political power in Viviani’s theater. If a text were to be added to Chaplin, this text should be written by Viviani, Arias explained. Servillo argues that what characterizes the figure of Viviani a lot is this dimension of a fighter.

The narration, punctuated by the voice of Paolo Cresta and accompanied by the musical arrangements of Maria Pia De Vitois interspersed with scenes of everyday life of our days, to testify the contemporaneity of Viviani’s theater, and with extracts from staging from “Gypsies” to “Ten Commandments”, from “Naples night and day” to “Io, Raffaele Viviani “.

What struck us most at the beginning was the markedly documentary character of Viviani’s theater, almost always set outdoors. His is a look from below – which does not judge and does not offer easy solutions – on the misery of the Neapolitan people. The point of view of the excluded and the marginalized to whom he returns with his poetics the dignity and depth they deserve in spite of any folkloristic interpretation, explain the authors who approached the great author from a privileged perspective.

When our father told us about Viviani he simply called him Il Nonno. The house on Corso Vittorio Emanuele one of the places where we grew up. As kids, we played in the garden and fearfully crossed the creaking parquet floor of his studio, which evoked images of other times. On Sundays we followed family stories distractedly but only much later, as adults, did we begin to rediscover him, to understand him and to feel closer to him. Gradually the desire to tell it was born.

Although it is appreciated by the public all over Italy and also in different parts of the world, as well as by critics, it has not yet received the full recognition it deserves. Because he adopts in his theater an ancient Neapolitan language, harsh and without concessions, often perceived as a difficult barrier to cross. But above all because Viviani shows without pity, highlighting the extraordinary vitality of an oppressed people, the wounds and wounds of a suffering city, the demons of misery and hunger that we want to exorcise, conclude Mario and Stefano Martone.

Rediscovering the figure of Raffaele Viviani today is therefore important to refine the gaze on a suffering humanity. And to give due recognition to an author who Dario Fo he defined a “gigantic character of our theater”.

Winner as best feature film in the “Campania Scenarios” section of the Ischia Film Festival 2022“Viva viviani” will be screened on Monday 24 October at 7 pm at the Modernissimo cinema in Naples (free admission for [email protected]) in the presence of a part of the cast, on 7 December Institute of Italian Culture in Marseille, and then will be broadcast in winter on Sky Arte.