La rigenerazione
An elderly man decides to undergo a medical procedure to regain lost youth... Valerio Santoro directs Nello Mascia in Italo Svevo’s last comedy: «I want the play to encourage the audience to clear-headedly analyse the false nature of the masks that society forces on us through habit and custom.»
Written between 1926 and 1927, La rigenerazione was the last dramatic work by Italo Svevo. The story revolves around Giovanni Chierici, a wealthy elderly man – here played by Nello Mascia – who decides to undergo an innovative medical procedure capable of restoring his body’s energy and youthfulness. However, the regained physical strength soon overturns his family and social life... «Svevo – comments the director Valerio Santoro – is a master in outlining the crises and obsessions of modern humankind, also caused by the cultural fabric of the time, the emergence of Freud’s psychoanalysis and the social ferment of that period. The man is a hero of his time, with his fragility and his ineptitude in the face of everyday life. In La rigenerazione, we have a protagonist of advanced age who wants to undergo a ‘modern’ operation that will allow him to turn back the clock. This is the origin of the comical and tragic sense of the entire work, to which I have sought to lend clarity through my directing. My desire is for the play to encourage the audience to clear-headedly analyse the false nature of the masks that society forces on us through habit and custom.»
Duration of the show: 2 hours and 30 minutes including an intermission
