Tag Archives: New York

John Turturro in Cecè by Luigi Pirandello

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The Pirandello Society of America, The Players & the Italian Cultural Institute

are proud to present a reading of Cecè, a one-act play by Luigi Pirandello,

starring John Turturro on Tuesday evening, April 25th at 8 pm at The Players.

A wine and cheese reception will follow.

Tickets are $40 per person. Seating is limited.

Please mail checks, payable to THE PLAYERS/PSA, by Thursday, April 20th.

at 16 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003.

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) wrote Cecè in 1913. This one act play offers in nutshell fashion its author’s greatest artistic trademarks: fascinating central character, surprising plot twist, indelible humor, and some sense of regret about the human condition.

John Turturro

The highly talented Italian American actor John Turturro, acclaimed internationally for  striking performances in such successful films as Do the Right Thing (1989), Barton Fink (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), offered a stirring stage performance in 2005 of Souls of Naples by the renowned Neapolitan actor-playwright, Eduardo De Filippo. Turturro recently brought this New York, English-language production, to Naples for a week’s run performed in the famous Teatro Mercadante.  Now he benefits the Pirandello Society of America with a reading of Cecè, presented at New York’s oldest and most historic actors club, The Players.


Founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, The Players houses some of the finest theatrical art and artifacts in the country. Its membership has included such theatrical luminaries as Mark Twain, the Barrymores, Eugene O’Neill, Helen Hayes, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Lord Laurence Olivier, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. Walt Disney, Carol Burnett, and Tony Bennett.  The Italian Cultural Institute, dedicated to strengthening the cultural links between Italy and the United States, is pleased to share sponsorship of Cecè with The Players and The Pirandello Society of America.

Since 1958 when it was established by Marta Abba and George Freedley, The Pirandello Society of America has been championing the works of Luigi Pirandello. It recently published volume XVIII of the annual, PSA. Both on page and stage, the Society offers Americans avenues into the extraordinary output of Italy’s most renowned modern playwright, an artist who has profoundly influenced the course of world theatre.

John Martello in Pirandello’s L’uomo dal fiore in bocca (The Man with the Flower in His Mouth)

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Performance:

7 November  2005, 6:00 pm

John Martello in Pirandello’s L’uomo dal fiore in bocca (The Man with the Flower in His Mouth).

Read about the play, including its historical significance as the first British televised play.

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò

24 W. 12th St.

New York, NY 10011

Il fu Mattia Pascal: Celebrating a Century – Conference 25 October 2004

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Preface

Greetings: Letizia LaRosa, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò

Reading: Il fu Mattia Pascal: Forwards I and II

Introductions: Mimi Gisolfi D’Aponte

Co-President The Pirandello Society of America

Part I

Il fu Mattia Pascal— Highlights from PSA XVII (2004)

and Panel Discussion

Moderator: Rose Fichera McAloon

Vice-President The Pirandello Society of America

Panelists: Daniela Bini, Umberto Mariani, Carmela Scala

Part II

Il fu Mattia Pascal–Selections from the novel

1. The situation

2. Suicide?

3. Mattia/Adriano in Rome

4. The ‘late’ Mattia returns

Readers: Daniela Bini, John Martello, Giuseppe Solinas,

Kathryn Wylie-Marques

Part III

Il fu Mattia Pascal–Cinematic adaptation

Postscript

Closing remarks: Jana O’Keefe Bazzoni

Co-President The Pirandello Society of America

Exhibit and Reception

Participants

Daniela Bini is professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, and chair of the French and Italian Department at the University of Texas, Austin.

Her publications include several books: A Fragrance from the Desert: Poetry and Philosophy in Giacomo Leopardi; Carlo Michelastedter and the Failure of Language; Pirandello and His Muse: The Plays for Marta Abba; a translation and introduction of a selection from Leopardi’s Zibaldone, with Martha King; the textbook Italiano in diretta with Antonella Pease, and numerous articles.  She was president of the American Association for Italian Studies from 2000-2003, and serves on the editorial board of several scholarly journals.

Umberto Mariani is professor emeritus of Italian at Rutgers University.  His area of specialization has been 19th and 20th century Italian literature.

Author of numerous works on Pirandello and other writers, his latest book on Pirandello is a study of the major plays, La Creazione del Vero: Il maggior teatro di Pirandello (Fiesole: Cadmo, 2001).  Professor Mariani has been editing journals in Italian studies including Italian Quarterly and NEMLA Italian Studies.

John Martello received the Pirandello Society’s Pirandello Medallion in 2001.  An actor, producer, and director, he wrote and performed “Damon Runyon’s Tales of Broadway.” which ran Off-Broadway for three and a half months.  John currently serves as Executive Director of the legendary theatrical club, The Players. He is in the process of producing a documentary on Luigi Pirandello for PBS as well as a short film version of “The Man with the Flower in His Mouth.”

Rose Fichera McAloon is a psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC and is affiliated with the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies.

Her doctoral dissertation (Italian Literature, Columbia University) was entitled “Preoedipal Conflicts in the Life and Work of Luigi Pirandello.”

Carmela Scala teaches at Hunter College and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the program in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

She holds BA degrees in both Psychology and in Modern Languages and an MA in Italian. Her research focuses on a psychological approach to the modern novel, and she is currently teaching a course on Italian short stories on the various ways writers treat life’s moments of suffering, accidental occurrences and disillusions, and how they are able to ” sublimate” their anguish through their writings.

Giuseppe Solinas has studied acting and directing in Italy, France, Poland, U.K. and India. He has acted in theatre and film and directed plays based on Pinter, Beckett, Checov, Shakespeare and Buchner. Last spring he was assistant director/dramaturg in Pirandello’s Tonight We Improvise, Jane House Productions. He holds an Italian Laurea, an MA in Theatre, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre Studies at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Kathryn Wylie-Marques is an Associate Professor of Speech, Theatre, and Media Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In addition to being a regular contributor  to the PSA journal and Pirandello panels at the Modern Language Association Conventions, she is the author of a book and articles on mime, actor training, and the Japanese noh.

Read the novel in the original Italian or in its 1923 translation by Arthur Livingston [1883-1944] in online versions.

Il fu Mattia Pascal

The Late Mattia Pascal

We are grateful to the following for their support:

Jason Belland; Sandra Roff, Baruch College, CUNY

Biblioteca-Museo Luigi Pirandello

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò

Enrico, Alexander & Christopher Bazzoni

John D’Aponte

Eurama Imports

Istituto di Studi Pirandelliani

Italian Culinary Institute for Foreign Professionals (ICIF)

Alessandro Tinterri, Museo dell’Attore, Genoa

Luana Nisi, Teatro Eliseo, Rome

Il fu Mattia Pascal: Celebrating a Century– Exhibit*

Photographic reproductions of archive materials from the Biblioteca-Museo Luigi Pirandello (BMLP, Library- Museum Luigi Pirandello, Agrigento, Sicily.)

are exhibited by permission of the Assessorato Regionale BB.CC.AA. and P.I. of the Sicilian Region. We are grateful to Dott. Arch. Vincenzo Caruso, Director

and Dott.ssa Filomena Capobianco, Project Manager of the Library-Museum Luigi Pirandello, and the BMLP staff for their courteous reception in Agrigento

and subsequent collaboration in selecting and transmitting items for the current exhibit.

Photographs of archival materials contributed by the Istituto di Studi Pirandelliani (ISP, Institute for Pirandello Studies, Rome) were first displayed at a centennial exhibit

—Il fu Mattia Pascal “I cento anni de Il fu Mattia Pascal,” June 16—July 8, 2004 at Rome’s Casa della Letteratura, curated by Alfredo Barbina, Director of the Institute.

We are grateful to Casa della Letteratura staff and ISP President, Alessandro d’Amico for their cordial reception in Rome and for permissions granted; and to Dott.ssa.Dina Saponaro and Dott.ssa Lucia Torsello for their dedicated collaboration in selecting and transmitting items for the current exhibit.

Jana O’Keefe Bazzoni, Exhibit Curator

*This work was supported in part by a grant from the City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program.

Casa Italiana NYC

Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò

New York University

24 West 12th Street

New York, NY 10011

October 25, 2004

6:00 pm

Exhibit

October 22-October 30, 2004*

Currently on display at Baruch College’s  William and Anita Newman Library

Il fu Mattia Pascal: Celebrating a Century – Exhibit, October 22-30, 2004

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Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò

Photographic reproductions of archive materials from the Biblioteca-Museo Luigi Pirandello (BMLP, Library- Museum Luigi Pirandello, Agrigento, Sicily) are exhibited by permission of the Assessorato Regionale BB.CC.AA. and P.I. of the Sicilian Region. We are grateful to Dott. Arch. Vincenzo Caruso, Director and Dott.ssa Filomena Capobianco, Project Manager of the Library-Museum Luigi Pirandello, and the BMLP staff for their courteous reception in Agrigento and subsequent collaboration in selecting and transmitting items for the current exhibit.  (Items from this source listed below are designated as BMLP.)

Photographs of archival materials contributed by the Istituto di Studi Pirandelliani (ISP, Institute for Pirandello Studies, Rome) were first displayed at a centennial exhibit–“I cento anni de Il fu Mattia Pascal,” June 16—July 8, 2004 at Rome’s Casa della Letteratura, curated by Alfredo Barbina, Director of the Institute. We are grateful to Casa della Letteratura staff and ISP President, Alessandro d’Amico for their cordial reception in Rome and for permissions granted; and to Dott.ssa. Dina Saponaro and Dott.ssa Lucia Torsello for their collegial collaboration in selecting and transmitting items for the current exhibit.

(Items from this source listed below are designated as ISP.)

This work was supported in part by a grant from the City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program.

Jana O’Keefe Bazzoni, Exhibit Curator

Exhibition Items

1.       Photograph of Pirandello at his desk, reprinted from I libri in maschera: Luigi Pirandello e le biblioteche, Annamaria Andreoli, ed. Rome: Ufficio Centrale per I Beni Librari, le Istituzioni Culturali e l’Editoria, Edizioni De Luca, 1996, p. 32.

2. Cover, Nuova Antologia, A. April-June, 1904. (BMLP)

3. Cover of Il fu Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello, Rome: Nuova Antologia, 1904. (BMLP)

4. Cover of “Informazioni sul mio involontario soggiorno sulla terra.” Biblioteca-Museo Luigi Pirandello. Agrigento, Antonio Perniciaro, Filomena Capobianco, Cristina Angela Iacono, eds. 2001, Regione Siciliana, Assessorato dei Beni Culturali ed Ambientali e della Pubblica Istruzione, p. 22.  (BMLP)

5. Photographs of literary figures of the period, Ugo Fleres, Nino Martoglio, Luigi Capuana, Emile Zola (ISP); photo of Pirandello by Capuana (BMLP).

6. Portraits of Pirandello and his wife, Antonietta Portulano by Ugo Fleres, on the occasion of their marriage, 1894, reprinted from I libri in maschera: Luigi Pirandello e le biblioteche, p. 51. (BMLP)

7. Photograph of Luigi Pirandello, his wife, Antonietta Portulano, and their children  Stefano, Lietta and Fausto, taken in Soriano nel Cimino, 1908, reprinted from “Informazioni sul mio involontario soggiorno nella terrra,” p.  22.

8. Title and sample pages from a handwritten, autographed copy of Il fu Mattia Pascal. (ISP)

9. Title and sample page Il fu Mattia Pascal in “Nuova Antologia” as published in serial form. (ISP)

10. Early review of Il fu Mattia Pascal. (ISP)

11. Photographs of the Café Aragno, Rome, late 19th-early 20th century. (ISP)

12. Photographs of Mattia’s Rome: St. Peter’s Basilica seen from the Gianicolo, Ponte Margherita, Ponte di Ferro—Ripetta, Tor di Nona. (ISP)

13. The Coazze Notebook, cover and one page.  Notebook kept by Pirandello, dated 1901-1910, begun on a family vacation in Coazze in August of 1901. Handwritten page with notes on Pirandello’s 1904 income, with, among others, the sum of 906 lire received by Luigi Pirandello from the “Nuova Antologia (publisher), [paper 24v] for the “Taccuino di Coazze”.  (Typewritten document repeats handwritten information.) (BMLP)

14. Cover and Title page, The Late Mattia Pascal, first English translation, first ed. Arthur Livingston, translator.  New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1923.

15. FILM D.O.C., article by Alessandro Tinterri on film versions of Il fu Mattia Pascal. (Museo Biblioteca dell’Attore, Genoa)

16. Copy of the brochure printed for the showing of the Marcel L’Herbier film Feu Mattia Pascal (Il fu Mattia Pascal) at the “Supercinema.”  (BMLP)

17. Eric Allatini’s letter to Luigi Pirandello, from Paris,  September 13 1924, in which Allatini expresses the wish to obtain the film rights for Il fu Mattia Pascal and Lontano. (BMLP)

18. Brio Allatini’s letter to Stefano Pirandello from Paris, September 24, 1924, confirming the offers made by telegram (same date) sent by the same: 40.000 (Lire) for Europe plus 35.000 for North America.  Mosjoukine to play Mattia. (BMLP)

19. Photograph of Marcel L’Herbier, Pirandello and Ivan Mosjoukine, 1925. (BMLP)

20. Photographs from L’Herbier’s Il fu Mattia Pascal,. (BMLP)

21. Letter from Allatini of ” Cinegraphic,” to Stefano Pirandello from Paris, September 23, 1926, in reference to the production programs of Il fu Mattia Pascal in the Americas. (BMLP)

22. “Cinegraphic” Contract . (BMLP)

23. Letter from “Colosseum Film” delegate, from Rome, January 14, 1936, to Pirandello, on negotiations with foreign concerns for film development of Il fu Mattia Pascal. (BMLP)

24. Letter from maestro Alberto Lattuada to a Commendatore, May 10, 1936, asking for a recommendation to Pirandello as composer for the musical score for Chenal’s Il fu Mattia Pascal. (BMLP)

25. Letter signed by Pierre Chenal to L.P. from Paris, September 2, 1936, regarding the first “continuity”, with a final modification for which he hopes to obtain the author’s approval. (BMLP)

26. Photographs of Pierre Blanchard, as Mattia Pascal. (film by Pierre Chenal for  Colosseum Film). (BMLP) 27. Screen shot–M.Pascal’s Tombstone–Pierre Blanchard as Mattia,  P. Chenal, Director. (ISP)

27. Letter from the Administrator of  the Pirandello Estate (Milan, May 21, 1939), to the SIAE (Authors’ Society); he has an agreement with the editor in Santiago del Chile and outlines the conditions. (BMLP)

29.    Letter from the Administrator of the Pirandello Estate, (Milan, May 12, 1939), to the SIAE ( Authors’ Society): he has not yet received any news from Giacompol, on Il fu Mattia Pascal so he can’t give a definite answer yet. (BMLP)

30.    Mini-posters with photographs of the film Le due vite di Mattia Pascal (“The two lives of Mattia Pascal” directed by Mario Monicelli, adaptation of Il fu Mattia Pascal. (BMLP)

31. Scenes from the 1974 premiere production of Tullio Kezich’s stage adaptation of Il fu Mattia Pascal, directed by Luigi Squarzina for the Teatro di Genova.  Mattia was played by Giorgio Albertazzi. (ISP)

32. Scene design for the 1974 production of Kezich’s adaptation of Il fu Mattia Pascal.

33. Photos & reviews of the Eliseo production of Il fu Mattia Pascal, Giuseppe Pambieri as Mattia (Teatro Eliseo, Rome, 2004).

34. Theatre poster Il fu Mattia Pascal (T. Kezich adaptation), 2004, with G. Pambieri as Mattia. (ISP)

35. Theatre poster Il fu Mattia Pascal (T. Kezich adaptation), 2004, with G. Pambieri as Mattia. (Teatro Eliseo, Rome).

36. Theatre program, with brief essays by Tullio Kezich (adaptor)  and Piero Maccarinelli (director) Il fu Mattia Pascal, 2004, with G. Pambieri as Mattia. (Teatro Eliseo, Rome).

37. Marcel L’Herbier’s film Il fu Mattia Pascal. (DVD-Foyer) (ISP)

38. Photograph of Pirandello at the time of Mattia Pascal, reprinted from Pirandello e il teatro siciliano, ed. Sarah and Enzo Zapulla. Catania: Giuseppe Maimone Ed., 1986, p. 46.

39.    Commemorative postal collage–1967, Italy, 100th anniversary of Pirandello’s birth; 1986, USA (Boston, MA.), 50th anniversary of Pirandello’s death .

40. Poster and program, “I cento anni de Il fu Mattia Pascal,” June 16—July 8, 2004, Casa della Letteratura, Rome. (ISP)

New York, NY 10010

Photo: Mattia Pascal in the Library, Marcel L’Herbier film Feu Mathias Pascal (1925)
Cast: Ivan Mosjoukine, Pierre Batcheff, Jean Herve, Michel Simon

Additional films made from the novel include Pierre Chenal’s 1937 film II fu Mattia Pascal and Mario Monicelli’s 1980s film Le due vite di Mattia Pascal, starring Marcello Mastroianni.

Il fu Mattia Pascal: Celebrating a Centenary – Exhibition: November 15-December 31, 2004

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William and Anita Newman Library

Baruch College, The City University of New York (CUNY)

151 East 25th Street

New York, NY 10010

Photo: Mattia Pascal in the Library, Marcel L’Herbier film Feu Mathias Pascal (1925)
Cast: Ivan Mosjoukine, Pierre Batcheff, Jean Herve, Michel Simon

Additional films made from the novel include Pierre Chenal’s 1937 film II fu Mattia Pascal and Mario Monicelli’s 1980s film Le due vite di Mattia Pascal, starring Marcello Mastroianni.