“Silvio Orlando stars in “Si nota all’imbrunire”: A poignant portrayal of isolation and mental illness”

Silvio Orlando is the absolute protagonist of the show “Si nota all’imbrunire (loneliness of a depopulated country)”, broadcast on Saturday 13 May at 21.15 on Rai 5. The theatrical text is by Lucia Calamaro, who also signs the direction. In Silvio’s country house, at the beginning of the depopulated village where he has lived alone for three years, his children Alice, Riccardo and Maria have arrived. The older brother Roberto too. A weekend. Silvio has acquired, in solitude, a good number of delusions, the most serious of all: he no longer wants to walk. He doesn’t want to get up. He wants to sit and live as much as possible. And alone. For the children who until now hadn’t worried too much about it, it is a question of deciding what to do, how to take care of it, how to move it from this position which is a metaphor for its mental state: which is that of a man who lives alongside existence and no longer in reality. Empathies, distances and showdowns emerge here and there. Silvio’s family members came to visit him for the tenth anniversary Mass of his wife’s death. There is something to commemorate, to say, to organize speeches. What is certain is that, prey to his isolation, a certain confusion between desires and reality settles in Silvio’s head, without anyone who denies it in everyday life, life can be exactly as one decides it to be. Until a certain point.
In the cast also Vincenzo Nemolato, Roberto Nobile, Alice Redini, Maria Laura Rondanini. Sets by Roberto Crea, costumes by Ornella and Marina Campanale, lights by Umile Vainieri. Editorial project Felice Cappa, television direction Daniela Vismara, executive producer Serena Semprini, edited by Giulia Morelli.