Great Theatre: al the 37th edition of the season begins with “The Kaufmann case”.
Verona. The first show of thirty-seventh edition of the event is the theatrical transposition of the novel of the same name by Giovanni Grasso, with protagonists Franco Branciaroli, Graziano Piazza and Viola Graziosi. Wednesday afternoon Branciaroli will talk about Giovanni Testori which marks the centenary of his birth and the thirty-year anniversary of his death. On Thursday the actors will meet the public.
Forty-eight shows are on the bill for another unmissable edition will call as always at New Theater lots of theater enthusiasts. From November 7th to March 17th it returns the Grande Teatro review, an event that has been renewed for more than thirty years, organized by the Municipality of Verona in collaboration with the Teatro Stabile di Verona.
The curtain will open for the first time on Tuesday 7 November at 20.45pm, with “The Kaufmann case”, by Giovanni Grasso with interpreters Franco Branciaroli, Graziano Piazza, Viola Graziosi, Franca Penone, Piergiorgio Fasolo, Alessandro Albertin and Andrea Bonella. The show is directed by Piero Maccarinelli and is produced by the Centro Teatrale Bresciano, the Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale, the Teatro Stabile di Verona and Il Parioli. After “before” Tuesday, "The Kaufmann case” repeat from Wednesday to Saturday at 20.45pm and Sunday 12pm at 16pm.
A much awaited show which in Rome, on stage at the Parioli from 24 to 29 October, had the President of the Republic in the audience Sergio Mattarella, the Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini, the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano and other members of the government including the undersecretary of culture Gianmarco Mazzi.
History. 1941, Munich, Stadelheim prison, maximum security cell: these are the last hours of Leo Kaufmann, sentenced to death for committing the crime of "racial pollution". Although he has always declared himself innocent, the Nuremberg Court has in fact established the existence of a sexual relationship between the elderly Jew and the "Aryan" woman in her early twenties Irene Seidel. It is the eve of the execution and Kaufmann asks to see the chaplain. Not for a deathbed conversion, but to deliver a final message to Irene... In front of the Catholic priest, in the last and anguishing hours before the end, Kaufmann will retrace his dramatic story, shocking clash between hatred and
injustice. Inspired by a true story, that of Leo Katzenberger and Irene Seidel, “The Kaufmann case” is the theatrical transposition of the 2019 novel of the same name by Giovanni Grasso which received many awards including the Cortina d'Ampezzo prize for Italian fiction and the Capalbio prize for historical fiction.
«In the essay “How to become a Nazi” William Sheridan Allen claims that the first symptom - Says Piero Maccarinelli - it is indifference, or rather, not wanting to see small wrongs suffered by others. “The Kaufmann Affair” examines a single life and a single death. We find ourselves faced with the horror of the racial laws, but not yet faced with the absolute evil of the Shoah. Kaufmann is a Jewish merchant who receives the assignment from an Aryan friend to look after his young daughter in Nuremberg. From this act of generosity his ordeal begins. What fascinates me about Giovanni Grasso's text is precisely the initial indifference and then the demented senselessness of the construction of evidence against him by his small neighborhood community. In fact, everything takes place in a neighborhood of a provincial city, Nuremberg. The two trials against Kaufmann demonstrate how words can take on different values depending on their use and contextualization. The external witness of all the narratives is a Catholic priest to whom Kaufmann will want to reconstruct the objective truth about him. But on the plot main character, personal data are also inserted, interacting, feelings that are confused between a paternal position and an inevitable desire of the beautiful Irene. Yet, everything is faced with great modesty and, at the same time, with an inexorable denunciation of the mediocrity of the slander that will lead to Kaufmann's execution for racial dishonor. Represent this story - he concludes Maccarinelli - it is a pleasure and a civil duty for me».
The show uses scenes from Domenico Franchi, of the lights of Cesare Agoni, of the music of Antonio Di Pofi and the customs of Gianluca Sbicca. On Wednesday 8th at the Teatro Nuovo at 18pm, a meeting is scheduled with Franco Branciaroli who, together with the artistic director of Stabile Theater of Verona Piermario Vescovo, will talk about Giovanni Testori (1923-1993) on the occasion of the centenary of his birth and on the thirtieth anniversary of his death.
“In full light, in full shadow” is the title of the meeting which will focus on those theatrical works written by Testori not “for” but “on” Branciaroli. «Without him, a great and unique actor, those works – he said Testors - they wouldn't even have started."
Thursday 9th at 18pm, again at the Teatro Nuovo, the actors will meet the audience.
Tickets are on sale at the Teatro Nuovo, from the Box Office and online at www.boxofficelive.it e www.boxol.it/boxofficelive. The prices are: stalls 26 euros, balcony 23 euros, first gallery 15 euros, second gallery 10 euros.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright La Milano
