A tribute that is worth three. A performance that was able to combine nostalgia and gratitude, joy and emotion, remembering three intellectuals who left a mark on the Calabrian and Italian panorama.
The show “Alla ricerca di una rosa ancora rossa” (In Search of a Still Red Rose) made its debut at the Festival delle Invasioni, in the pleasant setting of the open-air theatre behind the Tieri cinema. It is a free interpretation of the work written by Antonello Antonante and Franco Dionesalvi and staged in 1998 on the figure of the poet Franco Costabile, the centenary of whose birth occurs this year.
A friendship, that between Antonante and Dionesalvi (the creator of the Festival delle Invasioni, among other things), which united them in life and, by tragic coincidence, also in death, which occurred for both, albeit in different places, on July 6, 2022.
An anniversary that Antonante’s wife, Dora Ricca, and his daughter Renata wanted to commemorate in the most appropriate way: by bringing back on stage the fruit of their collaboration, thus paying homage to a much-loved and little-known Calabrian poet.
Six actors – Francesco Aiello, Lara Chiellino, Mariasilvia Greco, Ernesto Orrico, Elvira Scorza and Renata Antonante herself – for an intense and metatheatrical performance, embellished by the music of two musicians, Checco Pallone and Piero Gallina, also at home at the Teatro dell’Acquario, now disused but a training place for the majority of actors from Cosenza.
«Even though we haven’t found the actual script – explains Dora Ricca – thanks to notes and memories we have tried to reconstruct the genesis of the show, which was titled “Una rosa ancora rossa”, quoting Costabile’s poem “Una rosa nel vetro”».
Pages that rise to the sky, red roses planted at the end are instead the fruit of the creativity of Renata, daughter of an artist, who has lived in France for years: «I liked the idea of not only bringing on stage quotes but also actions, which take the necessary time. Vases, soil and rose plants were kept in suitcases, those of emigrants, ancient and modern, recounted by Costabile in the poem “The song of the new emigrants”».
