Laugh and cry, from the scene to the castle

On Wednesday the Italian Film Festival ended. Eleven movies were shown. I saw two. They were biographies of two playwrights from southern Italy from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the king of laughter (Here I laugh), de Mario Martone, y the strangeness (La stranezza), by Roberto Andò. In both, the protagonist was the magnificent actor Toni Servillo.

In the first, he played the Neapolitan Eduardo Scarpetta, a legend of the peninsular theater, capocomico and author who changed the taste of his time. His characters were nourished by the art commedy and, at the same time, they moved away from her. In addition, Scarpetta gave rise to a dynasty on the scene, her children, the Di Filippo brothers. The second movie was a masterpiece; Toni Servillo played the Sicilian writer and playwright Luigi Pirandello. Today I will comment the king of laughter; let the strangeness for next week.

Eduardo Scarpetta (1853-1925) was one of the pioneers of modern Italian theater that still had deep ties to the art commedy. His family was of modest origin. When his father became seriously ill, he had to look for work. He managed to join Antonio Petito’s theater company, the best Pulcinella of the 19th century. The representations were made in the San Carlino theater, in Neapolitan dialect. Petito later created a new character, Felice Siosciammocca, Pulcinella’s companion, to be played by Scarpetta.

When Petito died, in 1876, Scarpetta left the company. Through a loan, he reopened the San Carlino theater in 1880 and modernized it. The triumph that brought him a fortune was In Santarella. With that income he built a magnificent Liberty-style villa, La Santarella, whose façade was that of a castle with four towers. At the top, he put an inscription: “Quirido io”.

Scarpetta’s family life was a vaudeville. He had married Rosa Di Fillippo, daughter of a modest merchant. With her he adopted a son, Domenico, born from Rosa’s pre-marital relationship with King Vittorio Emanuele! But Eduardo also had a biological son with his wife, Vincenzo. Scarpetta was the father of many adulterous children, such as Maria, with the music teacher Francesca Giannetti; the one he adopted. They were joined by Titina, Eduardo and Giuseppe, born from Eduardo Sr.’s relationship with Luisa De Filippo, Rosa’s niece. Those three children, never recognized, took the maternal surname: Di Filippo. All three became central figures in the national theater. They called the father “uncle”.

The ineffable actor Totò, a friend of Eduardo Di Filippo, would take three of Scarpetta’s pieces to the cinema: misery and nobility (con Sophia Loren); A Neapolitan Turk (1953), where Totò plays a hilarious false eunuch; and The crazy doctor. They are on YouTube.

A bad step. Violin shoe in Rome Iorio’s daughter, a pastoral tragedy by Gabriele D’Annunzio. The piece impressed him so much that he wrote a parody, Iorio’s son, verbally authorized by the Vate who read it hilarious with laughter. On opening night in Rome, fans of the poet booed during the performance and decided to sue Scarpetta, supported by the versatile D’Annunzio. The trial lasted for years. The great philosopher and writer Benedetto Croce supported Scarpetta’s cause, continuing to point out that D’Annunzio’s tragedy was a work of art while Scarpetta’s parody was very minor, but in no way plagiarized. The final argument was made by the author of Iorio’s son who turned his defense into a hilarious monologue. The next day, newspapers throughout Italy commented on Scarpetta’s triumphant histrionic and oratory display.