Il fu Mattia Pascal (The late Mattia Pascal)

Il fu Mattia Pascal (The late Mattia Pascal), Luigi Pirandello's literary classic, is on stage at the Ghione Theater in Rome, with Giorgio Marchesi as the leading actor, who directed both the direction and the modern adaptation.

Written in 1904, the novel places at the centre of the story the character of Mattia Pascal who lives in a small town in Liguria, stuck in an unsatisfactory marriage and in uncertain economic conditions. At a certain point, however, the protagonist discovers the possibility of changing his life, so he moves to another city, even changing his name to Adriano Meis; he will soon realize the impossibility of maintaining his new identity however, and of being someone who does not exist.

On the theater stage, in a bare and essential scenography, Giorgio Marchesi and the composer and musician Raffale Toninelli on double bass, bring a new version where Pirandello's typical themes - existential drama, identity crisis, social masks - are narrated through a monologue, in a light and ironic way, with the accompaniment of dance and contemporary music. The text in fact, was set in the present day and not in the 1930s, to accommodate the contemporaneity of the topics covered: the relationship with one's own identity first of all, given the use of social media to communicate, while leaving the style and original language.

Photo credits: courtesy of the Ghione Theater official site