Milan loves Salemme. And Salemme loves Milan. Which for him has always been synonymous with Teatro Manzoni, “my Milanese house” he says, where he has come several times, always with excellent results from the public. From today the actor returns with “Napoletano? E famme ‘na pizza ”, a show with which he should have been on this same stage in March 2020 if a certain pandemic had not blocked the tour.
The first time at the Manzoni – he remembers – was more than 40 years ago. This is evidenced by a poster that the director of the theater, Alessandro Arnone, exhibits as a testimony of the time that was: in 1980, an Edwardian triptych was staged consisting of “Gennareniello”, “Pain under the key” and “Sik Sik The magic craftsman” . And a very young Vincenzo was in company.
The wave of memories immediately started: «We were in Milan on May 24th, Eduardo’s birthday. They celebrated him with a big cake. In those days I had discovered two things: that the city was not as cold and gray as they used to say; and that his audience loved Eduardo. After the show, despite the late hour, he went back to the stage for a kind of encore in which he recited poems. It was a show in itself of indefinite duration: there was never anyone who said nothing or went away first ».
Eduardo is gone now, but his legacy remains. The young actor at the time became a director, author and comedian in his turn. “I feel like the last of an extinct race of actors / entrepreneurs. The pandemic makes me feel even more responsible: the company (about twenty people) is like a big family where everyone is equally important. This is why the technicians come to the fore, to get the applause ».
In “Napoletano?”, He explains, “I stage the commonplaces of Neapolitanism. The text starts from the fusion of two of my works, “Con tutto il cuore” and “Una festa exaggata” and various fragments of others. On a terrace overlook the homes of the families I tell about in those works. Their stories now cross. As for me, I play the two heads of families. Sometimes it happens that he remains alone in front of the public. It is an opportunity for monologues in which I wonder about this culture so abused that it has become a prison of stereotypes: the Neapolitan must be nice, witty, brilliant, devoted to San Gennaro and Maradona, a Napoli fan, to drink coffee only in a hot cup … As the title suggests, knowing how to make pizza (with a strictly large cornice) becomes a license to belong ».
As for him, however, he is not so true from Naples: “I was born in Bacoli, in the province of Naples,” he recalls. “As a child I was terrified by the saying ‘See Naples and then die’: my father worked there and went there every day in Naples”. In short, «even today that I am“ assimilated ”, I continue to ask myself if I can declare myself as such». Except to conclude: «Coacervo of many experiences that have merged, the Neapolitan culture is overbearing, which imposes itself and like a volcano is always erupting».
But it would still be better to be defined only as an actor, without any geographical denomination of origin. “I was born in 1957, raised in an Italy that had a universally recognized universal language, that of Italian cinema and comedy”. As an artist he thinks that «it is rather the emotions that we induce in the public to define us. Laughter, tears and applause give us awareness of our existence. With laughter we will not save the world (which I don’t know if it is to be saved). Nor will we stop the pandemic. But certainly, after such a cold and hard time, we all need laughter. Above all now, it is perhaps the best sense of God’s existence ».
“Neapolitan? E famme ‘na pizza “, Teatro Manzoni, via Manzoni 42, until January 16, 23/35 euro, teatromanzoni.it
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