I was on stage from a young age; I learnt the craft first, and the art only later.

Eduardo De Filippo

In the early 1980s, Eduardo De Filippo was invited to teach some classes to the students of Ferruccio Marotti, then director of the Istituto del Teatro and later of the Teatro Ateneo, the first Italian university theatre, which was founded in 1935. It was there that actors of the calibre of Giulietta Masina, Anna Proclemer, Marcello Mastroianni and Leo De Berardinis made their debuts and numerous important figures also occupied a variety of roles, including Vitaliano Brancati, Enrico Prampolini, Ennio De Concini, Francesco Pasinetti, Alfredo Bini and Alberto Moravia, to name just a few.

It should come as no surprise, then, that De Filippo agreed to teach a series of drama classes to the students of the Università di Roma Sapienza, with whom he would continue to collaborate until his death in 1984. The lessons were all recorded and today are preserved in the Archivio Audiovisivo dello Spettacolo, at the Labs (Laboratorio Audiovisivo dello Spettacolo) run by Professor Stefano Locatelli. These audiovisual recordings constitute an extraordinary resource for tracing the history, art and humanity of De Filippo. Besides these lessons, there are also a few fragments of the meeting between De Filippo and Carmelo Bene. In 1981, they performed a double recital, for which Bene presented his Lectura Dantis and De Filippo recited his poems. This rare testimony of their collaboration dates from 1981-82, the period in which the recital toured various cities, before De Filippo and Bene fell out. And finally, there is De Filippo’s presentation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which he performed in Neapolitan dialect.

Maria Grazia Berlangieri