Realistic but also evocative and poignant, strongly emotional, like a whispered cry that resonates deafening more in the mind and heart than in the hearing, also unsettling for the unusual relationship that proposes between illness and priesthood, between vocation and loss of relationships with the reality. It’s all this The award -winning “The Gospel according to Antonio” by and with Dario De Luca, produced by the vertical scene of Castrovillariwhich nine years after its debut was left with the Oscar Theater of Milan in an updated version.
The Alzheimer’s disease, with all the upheavals that leads to life no longer life full of those who are affected by it and even more in the existence of those who take care of the patient, is the true protagonist of the work and in some way it can be said that the three characters are at his “service”.
Don Antonio, parish priest of Bivongi (Reggio Calabria) and vicar of the bishop, is a very active priestcompletely dedicated to his religious mission, helped by his sister-perpetual Dina and the deacon Fiore. It seems that nothing and nobody can stop it until the disease breaks in its days, first conditioning it and then bringing it into the void of a mind that wanders without having more reference points.
De Luca, who made use of the collaboration of neurogenetic experts, reconstructs on stage all these steps: from the first stumbles to the phase in which the protagonist has the awareness of the evil that hit him up to the progressive decay who pauses him in the body and borders him in a mental world of his own. In this growth (but perhaps it would be better to say decreasing) the author inserts the absolute originality of seeing how a priest can face the situation of degradation of thought and actions.
Don Antonio gradually creates his personal relationship with the Crucified Christ (sculpture made by Sergio Gambino). He wonders what this young man did to deserve such a terrible punishment and why he is naked (and wants a blanket to cover him), he would like to rewrite this part of the history and the Gospels. The crucifix becomes a fetish object for the patient, to create an area of absolute ambiguity between spontaneous faith and catechist teachings, inspiration for a path that, secular and believer to be, each spectator has the opportunity to do: “The Gospel according to Antonio »It can also become the Gospel according to each of us. On the other hand, the show also proposes other and various ideas, a sequence of suggestions that, while remaining in the background with respect to the main plot (for example, the shipwrecks of migrants on the Calabrian coasts), expand the contemporary themes and therefore the opportunities for Reflection for spectators (not surprisingly for a long time in the end).
With an interpretative intensity that modulates at every step of the story, Dario De Luca is a Don Antonio who flashes under our eyes and penetrates hearts and consciences. The Catanese Matilde Piana, the priest’s sister, is no less and outlines the drama of those who look after a Alzheimer’s patient in a perfect and significant waybetween affection, anger and despair. Davide Fasano, in the role of the deacon who then happens to the parish priest, is a worthy supporting actor.