THEThe step that most moves it? He arrives almost in the end … “I am old, I have no one anymore, but you will want to return to your home, you can say it, what you have suffered, and then everyone will think before making another, of war … and even those who were nothing, like me, will always be companions”. Has no doubts, Cinzia spanò. Actress and directorformer author of Palma Bucarelli and the other resistance and of Exaggerate! (a Stand-up comedy on gender equality) transformed into a monologue with the musical accompaniment of Federica Furlani Agnese goes to die Of Renata Viganò (“Among the best partisan novels I read” he assured Natalia Ginzburg): debut on April 4th at Palazzo Marino (free, reservations here)from April 13 to Labarca Theater (always in Milan), then on tour.
Free cruelty
Cinzia Spanò (photo Laila Pozzo).
“Set in the winter of ’44 among the mists of the Comacchio valleys, it tells the transformation, the acquisition of awareness of a protagonist radically different from the heroines and traditional heroes: it is an illiterate lavender, elderly and overweight yet vigorous, accustomed as it is to slam the heavy sheets on the axis. A simple lady, who has never dealt with politics not feeling up to par. The first awareness takes place when the Nazis – after a delation – take her husband away, but the really significant episode is when – for pure fun – the soldiers who have occupied the cottage kill the cat: free cruelty makes the horror clear. It is there that the German kills and enters clandestinity.
Viganò was an excellent writer, perhaps less valid as a “prophetess”: it is not that “everyone thought about it so much before making another, of war”.
This is the reason why I considered it important to stage a text on which I wanted to work for a very long time: in my in -depth readings on women’s canceled history, Agnese goes to die He continually jumped out. While the race starts to regain and rekindle certain nostalgia for “strong man”, it is essential to rediscover as “antidote” those who were the values of the resistance and which are at the basis of the Constitution. The past gives us tools that are energy sources. And the book is the example: these people who have nothing but are generous represent a model in our aegoriferous society.
Cinzia Spanò is Agnese
“One of the clearest and most convincing literary works that came out of the historical and human experience of the post-arminist struggle” called him Sebastiano Vassalli.
Yes, but of The path of the spider nests by Italo Calvino or of A private question by Beppe Fenoglio have heard in several, about The Agnese goes to die No. To the Viganò, however, the merit of having been a pioneer in re -evaluating the female role for a long time.
Not only relay relay
There was talk of the relay …
But the contribution given by women is not limited to messages or a sort of maternalge towards fighters! They also took the weapons, albeit among a thousand inner conflicts because the struggle was fierce, violent. The narrative is incomplete even as regards the images: that in the photos of April 25, 1945 there are in the majority men is not accidental.
In what sense?
There is a detector episode – reported by Benedetta Tobagi in The resistance of women – that dates back to the liberation fashion shows: Tersilla Fenoglio (battle name “Trottolina”) was proved to prohibit participation from the companions. “You don’t come otherwise we kick you! People don’t know what you did in the midst of us and we have to qualify with extreme seriousness” they said to her. These palaties had risked death and found themselves the prejudice of “immorality”: many were asked to wear the wing of nurse to avoid gossip. Behind the scenes a kind of “private” struggle was consumed for emancipation.
“Uncomfortable themes”
The shell.
Without considering that fatigue, risk and danger affect the female body in a different way from the male one. There are many events of raped partisans who did not have the recognition of what they had undergone: the judges, considering that they had lived with men, considered them bearers of a promiscuous sexuality. The book by Michela Ponzani documents it very well, War to women (partisan, victims of rape, “lovers of the enemy”. 1940-45). They are uncomfortable themes, as uncomfortable is everything about resistance: Giuliano Montaldo struggled to find producers for his film reduction in Agnese goes to diein 1976.
By the way: does the protagonist seem to her to her? It was Ingrid Thaulin, a beautiful and sophisticated Swedish who had often starred with Ingmar Bergman.
Montaldo himself, when he was proposed to him, objected: “Is it a relevant, what does it have to do with it?”. And this is a problem that borders a little in Hamlet (the Association, of which Cinzia Spanò is president, founded in 2020 to counter disparity and gender violence in the show environment, editor’s note). Because a project starts, the physical characteristics of the protagonist count. Let’s think about recent fiction on extraordinary female figures. Am I Margherita Hack, one of the major astrophysics in the world? My biography is not enough to be attractive, Cristiana Capotondi must impersonate me. Are they Alda Merini? It takes Laura Morante. Are Fernanda Wittgens, the first director of the Pinacoteca di Brera who saved the masterpieces from the bombings and helped the persecuted to Epatriareia? Here is Matilde Gioli …
Cinzia spanò with Federica Furlani, with her on stage in “The Agnese goes to die” (photo Laila Pozzo).
We open the rooms of Bluebeard
And for Oriana Fallaci even two incarnations: Vittoria Puccini and Miriam Leone. But why call your Hamlet Association? It is not that there are doubts about what to do …
Hamlet is the best known theatrical character, transposing him to the female is to declare that we would like the most open theater. Being or not being for us is: being there or not being there. The actresses are less than 40 percent and, if the actresses are missing, it means that in reality women are missing in the stories (while representing the majority of the public). Stories written at 85 percent by men, directed for 80 percent by men … a relevant part of our business is to map the percentages every three years, together with the commitment against gender gap and the fight against harassment.
The most satisfactory results, so far?
The processes against “predators” who had been undisturbed for years are coming to sentence. Our social campaign “We open the rooms of Bluebeard”, in 2021, brought dozens of reports and, networking with expert lawyers and other associations, we came to the complaint. Which is not an easy gesture. The prejudices on the partisans somehow remind me of those on the actresses: having the body as a work tool, we are sometimes suspected of “ease” and we almost be ashamed if an abuse happens to us. Enough! Shame must change side.
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