Maurizio Battista has now entered the minds of all Italians, the homus romanus medius – let’s specify that it is Macaronic Latin… – which talks about everyday life, with his cheeky comedy, fishing hands down among anecdotes of normal women and men.
“Pe’ fa’ laugh” with lightheartedness, the great De Curtis teaches, the highest art there is. Between historical pieces and innovations, Saturday will be in Messina, at the Coral Garden, and the evening promises to be, as they say in these cases, truly unforgettable.
Let’s start from the title of the show, which is “One Nobody and One Hundred Thousand”. So, if I may say, do you know Pirandello in fifth grade? Or are there other reasons too?
“And no, you’re wrong, because I have eighth grade.”
Ah, true, you’re right, sorry…
«So everything changes, right? No, no, no, it’s not Pirandello, it’s a… come on, in my opinion I’ll tell you a bit about everyday life, whether it’s Emilian, whether it’s from Lazio, whether it’s… in short, everyday life. I want to say with this title that we are all something else, we all want to be something else, we all use masks, I find an assonance with Pirandello, that’s all. Then it’s a story of our contradictions, mine first and foremost, but it’s a simple story, it’s not that we are scientists who go to Messina, it’s an elderly person who comes there and does something from the heart, certainly, like all my evenings, who tells what he knows, I tell about my village, as they say, I don’t go and tell things like that, it’s together with the people, who are very involved, that’s all, it’s not like scientists, these spectators, will come out.”
But has it become more and more complicated to make people laugh with these moonlights, for example compared to its beginnings?
«I don’t think, then, if you tell… it doesn’t change anything for me, because I always tell broadly the same topics, if you want to be… if you can find an excuse, because it makes you laugh less today this excuse is beautiful, because people pay a ticket to laugh and you have to make them laugh, right, using legal means, if I have to make fun of someone with a disability to make people laugh, no, if I have to make fun of a certain situation, no. I try to stay within my limits, in correctness and education, then, if one necessarily wants to be transgressive, like these “stand-ups”, like… for example, you’re talking about bad things, about the Madonna, I say do it, but that’s not what interests me, and maybe it’s not even what the public wants. I’ve never had any big problems. No one has ever come into the room and said “ahoooo…”, we could argue out of sympathy, because someone tells me “I know about Roma” or “I know about Lazio”, but that’s where you’re stopping. In short, politically incorrect becomes, when you want to say anything, about Jews, blacks, whites or greens, and you want no one to tell you anything… oh no, there’s someone who’s pissing themselves off, sorry, eh, and it’s their right. But the pure comedians, the real ones, from the 50s and 60s, I do what they did. Let’s talk about ourselves, about everyday life, about neorealism, what is it called arancino or arancina, we call these things here, no one has ever asked me to do a Schopenhauer session…”.
And where did Schopenhauer play?
“He played for Roma in the first two years, then they kicked him out… well, this is the key to everything, if some comedian then feels like a phenomenon, a philosopher, a preacher, well, it’s not me.”
I’ll name three names with a split personality, I wanted to understand if you’re also from the branch, Petrolini, Totò and Buster Keaton…
«Well, I’m more into Petrolini, obviously, but not because he’s Roman, because in any case he had a satirical but popular edge… which isn’t that… well, Petrolini was Petrolini, he was a bit of a precursor of certain things, even of the other two, Keaton was that… Totò was so strong, he was a mystery, that’s how he was, everyone likes him now, but not everyone liked him before».
I wanted to go back to the split, for example of Totò between actor and prince, that is, if she experiences it too… when the show ends does she become a sad person?
«No, look, no, no… my monotony is that I am the same before, after and during, my strength is that I am always Maurizio Battista, for better or for worse, I don’t know if I could even get better or worse, getting worse is difficult, improving for sure. Then there are moments of melancholy, but even journalists have them… we all experience them.”
And how does he experience melancholy, what does he do in those moments?
«Well, with the years that I have, I have three children, a little one here in front of me».
Her name is Anna…
«Yes, Anna, well done… well… and with a few tears, with a few lumps in my throat».
And how do you carry on with the lump in your throat?
«Eh, I’m not going forward, I suffer, I suffer, because, unfortunately, I, even Anna who is here next to me, she is also very sensitive, I often tell her “you are destined to feel bad”. When you are too sensitive, artistically it is useful to you but not humanly, it hurts a bit. But, well, it’s better to be like that instead of shit. I say it’s better to be sensitive and do a few more plants… yesterday she was crying over a hedgehog, we’re at the seaside for now, but, better this way… then, as age goes by, one gets emotional without any sense… but I always say, regardless of age, let’s try to be good people… I know it’s hard work”.
I can ask you for some previews of the show, for example if I tell you about Mozza’s concert (Mozart), or the lion in the Savannah from “Focus”…
«And of course, let’s do an initial piece, then we’ll do what they ask me to do, because whoever pays decides the show… we’re there to entertain the friends of Messina for two hours, two and a half hours and that’s it, end of discussion… then clearly Messina is also there in the evening, we’ll also talk about Messina».
We said that the title is not about Pirandello but about something else, but Pirandello was talking about the man and the mask, do you have a mask or not?
«No no, I am the man… I am not one of those who use the mask, I am the same man inside and outside the theaters, with all the advantages and all the defects, which are many».