«Last night I had a unique experience: some words that I wrote together with Chiara Francini They landed on the Ariston stage». The Nicola Borghesi noted on his Facebook profile after the monologue about non-maternity From Clare Francini aired at Feast of Sanremo. Borghesi had written the solo with the actress A girl like me, presented at the Campania Teatro Festival 2022. Bolognese actor and director, founder of the festival 20 30 and the theater group Kepler-452, friend of Lodo Guenzi from the welfare state, whom he always includes in his own shows, he loves working on biographies, social crises go to the bottom like last The capital, with me on the stage a group of workers of the GKN of Campi Bisenzio, a factory under disassembly. We caught him on the phone while he was traveling around Spain.
Borghesi, did you know that this excerpt from the program will be broadcast? «Yes, Chiara and the production anticipated it for me. I awaited the show with a mixture of emotion, doubt and fear, thinking that the context could have distorted the text. And instead…”.
And instead?
«… I was glad because it seemed to me that something unusual was appearing. It wasn’t like someone would come in and do a monologue and then say, That’s my opinion. In this passage there are different contradictory voices: one affirms one thing and the other disagrees, go somewhere else…».
How did the collaboration with Chiara Francini come about?
«Infinito Produzioni invited me, with whom I had done something with Lodo. I didn’t know her, but we hit it off straight away. It was about writing a biopic about her.”
How did you do it?
«With my usual method: I did a lot of interviews, improvised them, within the drama we tried to draw a thread that the controversial relationship with motherhood has to do with a class problem. Chiara was born in the Florentine belt, directly in Campi Bisenzio, the location of the GKN. He sought economic redemption above all, and in the plan to become someone motherhood was sacrificed and resurfaced as a wound.
How did Chiara come up with the topic of missing motherhood?
“It came out late. First he told me about his birth in a popular neighborhood and the need to break out of his social situation in order to show up. Then one day we were talking about Christmas trees and she confessed that, as she says in her monologue, she keeps them in her living room all year round. She started thinking about her relationship to childhood and from there thinking about the stage of life she is going through that she would have liked to have had children but didn’t know if she would be able to. This is how the text came about.
How was it for you man writing about motherhood?
«It is a technical practice of dramaturgical writing. You listen to the artist and try to bring back what emerges in the dialogue. But the topic was general. I am 36 years old and have no children. The problem has been knocking at my door for a while now. Hearing people tell you that time has passed and you haven’t noticed – like in the cherry orchard of my beloved Chekhov – has touched a sore spot that also belongs to me».
Having children means growing up, leaving youth behind, influencing creativity, says Chiara in her monologue. What do you think?
“That’s my fear too. Not particularly original: it shapes my entire generation. In this situation of capitalism and shrinking economic opportunities, I don’t see a rosy outlook. It’s easier to wallow in a late adolescence that puts off adulthood by a day, a month, a year. And when a child comes, you’re grown up, you can’t escape anymore».
What do you think of the fact that the monologue in Sanremo was postponed by about an hour? “I don’t know if it was a matter of expediency or just caused by the festival’s usual confusion. I’ve worked there twice, ghost-written and done public relations work for the welfare state, and I can attest that it really is a mess.”
Was the shift of the monologue from the concentration of the stage to television positive or negative for you?
“I think it was an opportunity. As I write in the post, Gramsci appeared to me in a dream as I fell asleep. In the sense that if you get a big audience, a big space, you keep your coherence , does not have to reject them a priori. It could be another experiment: to see the chemical reaction that takes place in these places in front of a large audience”.
What is he doing in Spain?
«With Enrico Baraldi we go to the “Miss You” festival in Valladolid to bring our love rallies to the Calderon Theater. We got to know this festival thanks to the Emilia Romagna Teatro, which sent us to take part in a European project a few years ago. I will also represent you my monologue The Others. And that scares me: I have to recite it all in Spanish».
February 14, 2023
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