On the centenary of the birth of Giovanni Testori (1923-1993)
I Promessi sposi alla prova
by Giovanni Testori
direction, adaptation and costumes Andrée Ruth Shammah
with Giovanni Crippa, Federica Fracassi, Tobia Dal Corso Polzot, Rita Pelusio, Aurora Spreafico, Vito Vicino
and the participation of Carlina Torta
set design Gianmaurizio Fercioni
lighting design Camilla Piccioni
music Michele Tadini and Paolo Ciarchi
production Teatro Franco Parenti, Fondazione Campania dei Festival
with the collaboration of Fondazione Teatro della Toscana, Associazione Giovanni Testori
On a bare stage in a provincial town—white walls, cluttered props, narrow doors, platforms, visible ladders and a grey rolling shutter at the back—a group of young actors, enthusiastic but inexperienced, somewhat disoriented and yet curious, are rehearsing with their mentor. It sounds like Manzoni’s masterpiece, but it soon becomes something else, in an attempt to free the characters from the printed page and turn the actors into people in their own right. On the centenary of Testori’s birth, this play, first performed in 1984, encapsulates the meaning of ‘theatre-making’. The characters try to step out of their roles, both theatrical and human, and enter their own time. In this way, art and life merge and the director, together with his students, becomes a researcher of the human soul and of the acting profession. Today as in the past.
