Naples, cousin city of Barcelona

"Naples is a curious country,
it's an ancient theater, always open.
People who are born there,
without rehearsing, go out into the street and know how to act."

Eduardo De Filippo

The dramatic work of Eduardo De Filippo is deeply rooted in the city of Naples. The portrayal of the Neapolitan character and its ways of life is exhaustive and ironic; De Filippo is a keen observer of the tradition to which he belongs. He himself asserted, however, that "the comedies, the more they are in Neapolitan, the more universal they become." The Neapolitan language is one of the distinctive features of De Filippo's work and becomes especially important in Filumena Marturano, written almost entirely in this vernacular language. Eduardo's world is made up of everyday details, seemingly trivial habits that are revealed to be full of poetic solemnity and turn into gestures of absolute human dignity from one moment to the next. It's a world of ordinary people (in fact, De Filippo generally names his characters only with a first and last name), people who endure the injustices and contradictions of the life they have been given, and who, in some cases, decide to reverse them. It is in this daily push and pull that De Filippo's Neapolitan localism can resonate anywhere in the world, even though specific situations may vary between places and times.

In our case, this localism feels surprisingly close. We immediately recognize ourselves in the customary scenes of his comedies, in the small elements and rituals that accompany conflicts between characters, marking the rhythms in each case. The Christmas nativity scene in Lucario de Casa Cupiello, the preparation of coffee that often provides moments of respite in domestic tensions, nougats of different textures, dishes cooked with the secrets of experience... And also, the importance of the after-dinner conversation following a meal, the central aggregating role of the family as a place of belonging, the differentiated relationships within fairly parallel social orders. Naples and Catalonia, without a doubt, are close relatives.

This kinship is the result of a cultural deposit that has occurred for more than 600 years. It is a history of conquest, dominion, and also cohabitation between the south of the Italian peninsula and the Iberian peninsula. Battles, royal marriages, economic, political, and artistic exchanges mark the historical ebb and flow that began in 1284 with the victory that Peter II of Catalonia-Aragon achieved against the Anjou fleet in the Battle of the Gulf of Naples, commanded by Admiral Roger de Llúria. This event, catalyzed by the revolt known as the Sicilian Vespers and the marriage of Peter II to Constance II of Naples, marks the beginning of all these years of shared history. The Neapolitan city, like our own, is full of signs of this kinship. The very Castel Nuovo, which impressively welcomes everyone arriving in Naples by sea, was notably renovated by Alfonso the Magnanimous after integrating the Kingdom of Naples into the Kingdom of Aragon in 1441. We don't want to dwell too much on all these chapters; it is enough to point out that the comings and goings of history eventually led to over 200 years of Bourbon rule over the Neapolitan territory, initiated in 1734 with Charles of Bourbon and ending with the capitulation of Francis II to Garibaldi's Redshirts in 1861 during the reunification of Italy.

All these historical sediments endow our respective traditions with a family atmosphere that accompanies us in staging Filumena Marturano. Having Enrico Ianniello in the company, in this sense, has meant a constant exchange of cultural references and pleasant surprises due to the proximity of Neapolitan and Catalan traditions. Throughout the rehearsal process, we have soaked in Neapolitan life and revisited our own tradition. In fact, the adaptation of the play into Catalan that Oriol Broggi has worked on with Xavier Valls has revolved around this kinship and its translation to the current audience.

Certainly, many of the cultural aspects that we have been sharing are now obsolete, echoes of our traditions that Filumena Marturano makes resonate. We have been considering them, some with reluctance, some with rejection, others with nostalgia, and others with sympathy. In this regard, we are accompanied by words that De Filippo shared on one occasion in an auditorium:

"Only after studying, delving into, and respecting tradition do we have the right to kick it and set it aside, always with the awareness that we are debtors, at least for having helped us clarify our ideas. Naturally, if we remain anchored in the past, life that continues becomes life that stops, but if we use tradition as a springboard, it is evident that we will jump much higher than if we start from the ground. And besides... it seems to me that there is no one who really starts from the ground."

Eduardo De Filippo

One of the Neapolitan traits that is more present in Eduardo's comedies is the blurred separation between the private and public spheres. It is also one of his more theatrical traits. Houses are always crowded with neighbors, chaplains, messengers, lawyers... conversations are never private; there is always someone poking their nose in, opining inopportunely, demanding a seat at the table. Communal life, in this sense, is present inside homes, and private life unfolds without shame on the streets. After his first trip to Naples, Walter Benjamin writes together with the Latvian actress Asja Lacis:

"Buildings become popular theaters. All are divided into an infinity of animated scenarios simultaneously. Balconies, lobbies, windows, porches, stairs, lofts are both stage and box. Even the most wretched of beings acts with aplomb when he obtusely realizes that he is participating, despite his degradation, in one of the unrepeatable scenes of the Neapolitan alley, that he is enjoying leisure despite his poverty, that he is part of the grand spectacle. (...) What distinguishes Naples from the great urban cities are the torrents of community life that flood private actions and behaviors. Simple existence, so private an affair for the northern Europeans, is here a collective matter."

Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, Naples

It is this way of sharing life that De Filippo takes as a source of irony towards his own tradition; an irony that is both cynical and compassionate and that serves as a very healthy place from which we can recognize ourselves and also distance ourselves from our cultural heritages.

The Naples of Filumena Marturano is a city of sheets hanging from windows, improvised markets where fish is displayed abundantly in stalls besieged by flies, tragedy through poorly paved streets, and matrons spending sunny afternoons sitting in surprisingly small wooden and wicker chairs. It is also a post-war city, of hunger and stories of misery, of pronounced abysses between the marginal, narrow, and gloomy neighborhoods and the grand commercial avenues of prosperous neighborhoods. It is a city of small shops, of travelers who are not yet tourists, and of neighbors who see the street as an extension of their dining rooms. This city could well be the Barcelona of sixty years ago. In his Letters from Italy, Josep Pla writes that in Naples, "as in Barcelona, one senses that things here go a bit to the good of God."

How is Naples today? Has Barcelona gone far away? And Catalonia, does it still have domething from these Neapolitan airs?