One of Eduardo Scarpetta's funniest comedies, Il medico dei pazzi (The doctor of the fools), also made famous by the film starring Totò in the 1950s, is on stage at the Argentina Theater, directed by Leo Muscato, on the occasion of the centenary of Eduardo Scarpetta's death.
Written by Scarpetta in 1908, O miedeco d'e pazze, also known as Il medico dei pazzi, the comedy is a perfect machine of misunderstanding. The play recounts the misadventures of Don Felice Sciosciammocca, a wealthy landowner, naive and provincial, who arrives in Naples with his wife to meet his reckless nephew Ciccillo, whom he has supported through his studies and who now leads him to believe he has a degree in psychiatry and is running a clinic for the mentally ill. In reality, Ciccillo, instead of studying, has spent everything on entertainment and gambling and is constantly threatened by his creditors. To convince his uncle and continue extorting money from him, the young man plans to pass off the boarding house where he happily lives with a friend as a sanatorium.
Loosely based, like much of Neapolitan theater at the time, on a plot derived from French theater, the comedy explodes with comedy, leveraging the situations in which the unsuspecting Sciosciammocca finds himself. He mistakes the eccentric guests of the boarding house for more or less dangerous lunatics, a hilarious collection of tics and human traits, and convinces himself they are patients, thus cheerfully and playfully highlighting the relationship between normality and madness. From that moment on, the comedy devolves into a whirlwind of misunderstandings and paradoxical situations. A masterpiece of Neapolitan theater, the comedy centers on the popular character of Sciosciammocca, invented by the ingenious playwright.
In this version, set in 1970s Naples, beyond the fun, a deeper reflection emerges: that of people's identity, since anyone can be mistaken for someone else. Don Felice in particular, filled with disappointment at having been deceived and tricked by his beloved nephew, smiles bitterly as he realizes that perhaps he really is the craziest of them all, and his own identity begins to falter. Despite this, the comedy concludes with a poetic and inevitable happy ending.
Compagnia Mauri Sturno, Due Della Città Del Sole - Teatro di Napoli – Teatro Nazionale
With Gianfelice Imparato, Luigi Bignone, Giuseppe Brunetti, Francesco Maria Cordella, Giuseppe Rispoli, Ingrid Sansone, Michele Schiano Di Cola.
Photo: official poster of the show
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