Debut: Genoa, Politeama Genovese, 9 March 1966
| Direction | Luigi Squarzina |
| Assistant director | Carlo Quartucci |
| Set and costume | Gianni Polidori |
| Music | Gino Paoli |
| Production | Teatro Stabile di Genova |
Characters and performers
| Caio | Ivo Garrani |
| Claudio | Paolo Ferrari |
| Heartbreak | Leo De Berardinis |
| The young man turned off | Rino Sudano |
| Tomasi | Luigi Carubbi |
| Aldo | Piergiorgio Menegazzo |
| The three dudes | Marcello Aste |
| The man from the jukebox / man at the cafe | Gianni Fortebraccio |
| Mariateresa | Lea Massari |
| Cinzia | Livia Giampalmo |
| Susanna | Maria Grazia Grassini |
| Ondina | Gabriella Era |
| The housewife | Anna D’Offizi |
| Men, women and children at the cafe | Luigi Castejon Giselda Castrini Cosimo Cinieri Sabina De Guida Sandro Dal Buono Giorgio De Virgiliis Margherita Fumero Enio Gaggiotti Vittorio Penco Maggiorino Porta Myria Selva |
| Voices of the jukebox | Gino Paoli Lea Massari |
Written by Squarzina between 1961 and 1963, this play was a major novelty on his artistic journey, in which he abruptly changed direction in form and style from his previous output. Namely, he offered a “precise upgrade of the expressive modules,” taking account of the experimentations taking place in the arts and in literature, as well as the expressive requirements of the theatrical avant-garde related to the most poignant themes of the ‘60s, such as Communism, mass civilization, advertising, and the culture industry.
Challenging the most traditional critics, he implemented a dangerous artistic and cultural operation. He wrote text without punctuation or stage directions, as these limit the strength of the word, and he experimented with a language unprecedented for the Italian stage in order to highlight the banality and irrationality of everyday language, which led to the “dissolution of meanings of everyday life during those years, thus reflecting their alienation.” The author defined the work as an avant-garde parodizing critic with the means inherent to the avant-garde; in reality, Pirandello and Ionesco can be found in it, as well as the indignation of the man of culture towards the commercialization of culture and the arrogance of pseudo-revolutionary intellectuality.
Although the comedy received high praise from critics and was honoured with the 1966 Premio IDI, it resulted in an unbelievable trial for religious defamation. Squarzina ended up being cleared of all charges, because his work not only does not offend religion, but is in fact rich in morality.
“La storia d’amore va letta soprattutto come un tentativo non riuscito di liberazione sessuale della protagonista e va inserita nel contesto storico della mercificazione di qualsiasi valore, dell’alienazione consumistica, della vacuità parolaia, della rinuncia alla responsabilità. Sono queste gravi contraddizioni della società dell’epoca che mi interessava ben rappresentare e che del resto si ripercuotono sul rapporto d’amore tra Emmetì e Claudio determinandone il fallimento”.
Luigi Squarzina
From E. Testoni, Dialoghi con Luigi Squarzina, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2015, p. 176
We thank Teatro Nazionale di Genova for the concession of the use of photographic material.