Claudio Bisio interprets an ironic and bitter monologue on the complicated relationship between father and son. A profound reflection on our “jammed” time and on our future
A father and his son compared. Or, better, a father abandons himself to a long confession about his uncertainties and perplexities, about the bad and strange habits of a child who never appears on stage, but is continually evoked by the words of those who try a dialogue with a generation with whom it has become almost impossible to make a connection.
Father and Son represents the return to the theater of Claudio Bisio which, for this show directed by Giorgio Gallione, interprets some passages from the books The Lying e Breviary Comic by Michele Serra, to whom the whole piece is inspired.
Claudio Bisio accompanied the public of the Bellini Theater of Naples, in the early evening of yesterday, January 27, 2015, for about an hour and a half, in a delicate, ironic, but at times also sad and desperate, journey in the complex and "jammed" relationship between father and son in our day. And that, symbolically, expresses more and more the distance between two generations who can no longer deal with the same issues and the same interests.
How do you convince a teenager who is about to mature? a walk in the mountains with his father breathing pure air and admiring beautiful landscapes is more "poetic" and "profound" than a game at the Play Station, the music that "hammers" the ears through the iPod, than a queue of hours to enter the shop that sells sweatshirts at the latest fashion from the revered United States? The portrait of a son who, like all his children, now prefers to hide in his own sweatshirts, sink into his sofas, surrounded and protected by their technological prostheses, refusing or despising confrontation.
How do you teach your children the healthy values of the past, which can perhaps still find a place today, in a ruthless and cynical society that increasingly obliges young people to be "in step with the times" using increasingly expensive technological objects that do nothing but make them lobotomized and devoid of conscience and curiosity to explore the world?
It is the dramatic question that emerges from the bizarre, funny, but also bitter stories of a father who tries, alternating joking and more serious tones, to talk to a son who remains silent and invisible for the duration of the show. The music and melodies coming from a violin and a guitar constantly on stage materialize its presence.
I annotate with scientific zeal, and no literary embroidery: you are lying on the couch, immersed in a crumpled crumpled of pillows and crumbs, the computer on resting on your stomach. With your right hand, type something on the iPhone. The left holds a ragged chemistry text with two fingers. Between the back and the cushions I see the leftover of one of your favorite foods: a raw sausage. The television is turned on, at a very high volume, on an American series in which two obese brothers, with a rudimentary lexicon, explain how to clean up a house with rats. In your ears you have the headphones connected to the iPod: it is possible, therefore, that you are also listening to music. Not being quadrumane, unfortunately you are not yet able to use your feet for other connections; but you understand that your huge ends, left on the armrest, are a clear test for your fellow California who will find a way to turn your toes into antennas, becoming a millionaire, and you one of his millions of guinea pigs ... I look at you, amazed. You look at me, amazed at my amazement, and comments: "It is the evolution of the species". I think you are right. But of which species, at the moment, we can not know.
Father and Son it is a sight not to be missed because, among the smiles ripped to the spectators and the loving consciences, anyone can recognize themselves in the words of a father dedicated to a child. Even those who have no children yet, but have no doubt about the dynamics that this relationship will inevitably provide.
To know the dates, times and prices of the show, consult our article on Father and Son
