Why Did Hippies Wear Bandanas

CB

Rome, March 2003 \u0026lt;/ o: p>

Dear Antonio,

I would like first to clarify that Carmelo Bene, I never created any scene. I did however many pictures of the scene, as well as the murals that decorated the whole room of Beat 72 and, in particular, Our Lady of the Turks, the canopy at the end of the show taking shape on the bottom of the scene, thanks to a halogen light. Besides, for six shows, I designed and carved a series of posters. In chronological order were: Manon (at Harlequin Theatre, Flaiano today), Faust (at the scene of satyrs), Our Lady of the Turks, Salome, Hamlet (the Beat 72), and finally Arden of Faversham (Carmelo Bene in the theater). Not infrequently those flyers, duly sold, solved, in a few evenings particularly dif ficult , dinner in the company. When the audience ranged from 5 to 10 units, and not even the hundreds of theater Argentina, three posters purchased from true fans, they gave us the opportunity to fill their stomachs, at the end of a show that was surely not happy with how the spirit.

Caramel I was introduced by mutual friends in Lecce, where he had just turned sixteen. The meeting took place on the terrace of his house, which was located next to one of the many splendid Baroque churches Lecce. On this, I'm terrace there was a room that Carmelo had elected to his office, and den-ing that his own personal lair, spent most of his time to record, on an old "jealous" on tape , his voice, to remove all the dialect that still Today, after seventy years, I still I have not taken off.

I lived for some years in Rome, and Caramel was very interested in the artistic life that took place outside Lecce. Following these two words is to become unified, "we who are the" Fuorilecce ... '.

academy His move coincided with the beginning of my travels around the world, and for some years we lost touch. I met him again at the end of '61, during his presentation of Lecce Gregory. The Gregory that nobody has ever appointed in the recent conferences on Mount Caramel, was a delightful collage of poetic songs in late '800 and early '900, recited in a very free and lively so that some of the actors brought them down from a swing, the swing which was pushed up in head to the public, and back again. All with the related problems for the safety of spectators, who had secured at least a stiff neck. At the end of the show we met and told me of his intention to come to Rome. At that time the house where I lived, in Via Angelo Brunetti, a stone's throw from Piazza del Popolo, had become a kind of youth hostel, whose furniture consisted of four chairs, a table and thirty beds. Caramel I moved, the table was immediately painted red and black chairs. Now the problem arose of having a space in which to act. We sold two of my paintings and we rented, in Via Roma Libera, a minispazio which later became the famous Theatre Workshop, best known for urinating in public, even on the public, he would have earned the reputation, the front pages of newspapers, and a 'unspecified amount of complaints. The show was called Christ 63 , the physical act that made him ultranoto was performed by Alberto Greek, before the Caramel follow suit. (Alberto Greek, Argentine painter, is then committed suicide in Paris).

Meanwhile on the table of the house red, which he shared with me, we started a first draft of Pinocchio. between this work and some sketches for the costumes of the characters I drew, I spent whole nights with him reading the Caramel fugitive poet Tristan Corbiere, translated beautifully by a poet who worked for Lecce types of Sansoni: Vittorio Pagano. In reality, Vittorio, Lecce great poet, that in translating from French to reinvent the poems, the poem had to Corbiere, a personal gem, who read it carefully will discover that Our Lady born completely quest'operetta. On the other hand, the art comes from art.

Carmelo Bene, as we all Lecce, was a fan of opera. A high percentage of my fellow citizens comes with the deep conviction of being a great tenor, baritone or bass, or at least. Caramel and I do not escape this temptation, but as I have done, in sailing terms, a jibe to painting, Carmelo in his obstinacy, he invented an opera in prose where to perform. Because the Italian theater performances at the comedy moves from sacred art, to then go after the Opera, the only true and authentic new national theater, which are all events of Carmelo Bene and when the first theater critics jumped on the giving the label of mad or crazy provocateur, the only one who sided with him was Ennio Flaiano, who proclaimed from the height of his intelligence in his article, Rub the Mona Lisa, do not do a mustache ... , meaning that Carmelo raping the works represented, but in a lucid and rational, without jeers free.

In the years '64-65, I returned to Paris, and when I returned to Rome, took a new apartment in Via Montoro, near Campo de 'Fiori. The association with Caramel shooting almost immediately, and my house was the scene for evidence, and room for press conferences. There began the first tests Manon with actors who unfortunately disappear, as Bernadette Kell, Peter Vida, Alfiero Vincenti, Lydia Mancinelli, and especially Rosabianca Scerrino, the greatest actress that Carmelo had, the only one that ruled the scene at his side with the same intensity and the same rhythms. From the Harlequin Theatre, where Manon was represented, he passed the scene of satyrs, where, with Franco Cuomo, represented the Faust, show where Mephistopheles (played by Mario Tempest), rather than a devil, that was a poor devil , disguised as a masked man, wearing the holster in place of the gun, bills to pay.

Ed infine il Beat 72, in via Belli. Il primo spettacolo fu Nostra Signora dei Turchi . Il primo atto si svolgeva sul palcoscenico con delle porte a vetro che, rimanendo chiuse, isolavano gli attori dal pubblico. Nel secondo tempo le porte venivano aperte e gli spettatori venivano inondati da musica e parola ad altissimo volume.

Seguì Salomè, dove il tema musicale di Abat‑Jour inondava con le sue note l'intero teatro, mentre Salomè (Rosabianca Scerrino) seguiva immobile, ad occhi sbarrati, assieme agli altri attori, un'ipotetica danza dei sette veli che si svolgeva altrove, in un'altra dimensione. Carmelo (Erode) after a tour of the audience was singing I I love you very ...

It was the turn of Hamlet version of Laforgue, "the impact of filial piety." In version beniana during the funeral lament for Ophelia (Rosabianca Scerrino), Hamlet very democratically distributed roses between Ophelia and the Queen Mother (Lidya Mancinelli). Once again I walked away from Rome, and when I returned to headquarters, Caramel now is poised to become a teacher imitated by many young people who frequented the theater and loved mingling with other spectators, like Antonioni, Monica Vitti, Gassman, Pasolini, and so on.

my other brackets abroad and Carmelo went to the movies. The first was Our Lady of the Turks, together with Sasa shot Siniscalchi, who had been his help in many plays. The second was directed to Capricci, film that I have lived in full, as well as being filmed for the interior in my house, being Montoro (and this is perhaps the only show where there was my participation in the set design), I used Caramel as an actor. There is one particular that I remember: I made this film for the three-dimensional models of three paintings (Morandi, De Chirico and Guttuso) which were then destroyed in a scene shots oranges. In other replicas of paintings, Schifano for the accuracy, representatives hammers and sickles, we smashed them in the head and I happily Caramel during a brawl that lasted fifteen minutes.

After this film, I went to Australia and I saw Carmelo years later in an interview that the writer Aldo Bello made both me and him as Fuorilecce known.

I am not a historian of the theater, I told only those things that I and Carmelo we were complicit in part. I do not know much of the Biennale of Caramel and other official things, but I can not imagine it with a cocked hat on his head. Thinking about how it was good in his youth, became stupid to think like the old Marinetti, it gives me very uncomfortable. Even the applause from people who wanted them to understand him. The claque has never wanted to know ... and on the other hand with 7:00 to 8:00 to show where viewers could put the claque?