Boccaccio’s “Decameron”, Camus’s “The Plague”: masterpieces of literature which, conceived in very different eras, share the theme and refer to the pandemic, the disease that spreads and annihilates. Both titles are on stage this week: it is no coincidence that they were chosen. A red thread of death and pain links the fourteenth century to the twentieth century and the present millennium.
On stage from 22 at the Carcano Theater (Corso di Porta Romana 63, until March 27, 30/38 euros, teatrocarcano.com)“The plague of Camus. The attempt to be men”, A co-production of the Stabile del Veneto with that of Bolzano and with the Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Teatro Carcano, is signed by Serena Sinigaglia who works on an adaptation by Emanuele Aldrovandi. In his 1947 novel Albert Camus tells of the explosion in Oran of a plague, the prodrome and the dead, the quarantine imposed on the city, the unveiling of the different humanity of individuals, resignation and then, after the peak, the regression of evil. And the final warning: it’s over, but it’s not over, it can still come back. If for Camus that had to be a metaphor of Nazism, plague of the soul and politics, no text today seems so literally premonitory of our present in check by coronavirus, and also by war.
Reducing the amount of situations, reflections, emotions and personalities of that book into a play was a challenge. “During the lockdown I felt lost, confused, dazed, like many, perhaps everyone – explains the director -. It is not the first and it will not be the last epidemic that strikes man, I said to myself. But that wasn’t enough to calm me down. So, as I always do when I’m in trouble, I started reading ».
She loves Camus, Serena Sinigaglia, but she had never read “The Plague”. It was time to do it. «It seemed written for me and my bewilderment, as if it were a book from 2020 and not from the 40s of the last century. Talk about us, talk about how we react to unexpected events, which confuse and disorient us. Today more than ever I feel the urge to stage stories that can help us face these extreme and violent times. And I feel the theater as a place of proximity and sharing where to rediscover fully human among humans “.
“Decameron. A true story ”at the Litta Theater
The need to stage “Decameron. A true story” (Teatro Litta, corso Magenta 24, until April 3, 25 euros, mtmteatro.it). Director Stefano Cordella imagines a dystopian but very real reality, where a new global pandemic besieges the planet. At this juncture, six artists decide to stage one last party before the end. Thus they live their own very personal “Decameron” 700 years after the plague that struck Florence: they like those 10 young people who had abandoned the city to take refuge in the countryside far from the disease and the dead, relying on the saving power of the narrative. «This work – explains the director – has allowed us to be in the months of forced closures among the lucky few with a project to be implemented. I asked the actors to whom I auditioned to bring a personal reading of the extraordinary present that we were and are still experiencing. Also from there I left together with Filippo Renda, who made the dramaturgy, to make this show ».