Naples and Colleferro have always been closely linked, not only for the motorway exit on the Rome-Naples but above all for the fact that a large part of southern Lazio was part of the Bourbon Kingdom (even though we belonged to the Papal State).
When Colleferro was born, many Neapolitans moved to our town bringing with them music, some culinary traditions and a creative way of living. My dearest friend of adolescence was a Neapolitan.
That was also the time when we were all reading Eduardo de Filippo's comedies and, when we wanted to be crazy, we took the highway to go to Naples for a coffee. Because only in Naples they know how to make it’!
So, when I was young and the world was less technological, Colleferro was the northernmost town (excluding the city of Rome) where Roberto de Simone's NCCP - Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare (New Company of Folk Song) arrived on tour. To be clear, that of Eugenio Bennato, Peppe Barra, Carlo D’Angiò and Petra Montecorvino.
I loved them from the first moment and the first live show I attended with my daughter was La Gatta Cenerentola at the Brancaccio theater in Rome (she was 2 and obviously she doesn't remember!).
I saw NCCP right at the Vittorio Veneto theater where last night the show “Sei mai … mi sposerò” (if ever… I will get married), by the Acis Il Sipario company from Naples was staged, for the Italian Amateur Theater Grand Prix.
Very pleasant show with a theme close to each of us. A comedy that has taken up the tradition of the Neapolitan theatre. A tradition still alive and that always produces new masterpieces.
Just like that of Sasà Palumbo who is the author, director and main actor.
The theme of the show is fear and doubts before the wedding of a young inexperienced man. His two brothers give him opposite advice, but the onbe who tries to dissuade him has two failed marriages while the one who encourages him to marry has no experience of married life.
Two hours that flew by with actors totally at ease on stage to appear professional. Sasà was perfect with his cadence bringing Massimo Troisi back to life, and a little applause to Antonella Romano who played Sasa's first ugly wife, she seemed real.
The comedies of Totò and Peppino came to mind, and the audience responded with laughter and open stage applause: it is not easy to hold the scene for two hours, entertaining the spectators and then involving them in the final choice.
“After the brothers' two speeches on the meaning of married life, the wedding procession enters the parterre and ask the audience whether or not the younger brother should get married. Depending on the mood and response of the audience, we have two endings " Sasà tells us in our interview.
We had the finale with the celebration of the wedding, maybe in Colleferro we are romantics, which however ends with a final quarrel.
“On other occasions the final quarrel begins in the hall between the audience and the wedding is not celebrated. In any case, there are quarrels because life is made up of these moments that we must learn to manage with irony and a smile".
Sasà tells us that he was inspired by his life, but I believe that each of us has found her/himself in some passage of the comedy and above all in pre-marital doubts. Who knows what advice we really wanted to give to the brother about to get married and to have that father-in-law who was certainly not the height of joy.
A show to recommend and, from the satisfaction of the parterre, I am sure that the theater company Il Sipario di Napoli will return on tour to Colleferro, like the NCCP, and that we will have fun again with other plays by Sasà Palumbo.
I already book the ticket!
Follow us