The Menecms of Tato Russo at the Delle Palme [Review]

The Comedy of Misunderstanding masterfully interpreted by Tato Russo, who stages the Menecmi at the Teatro Delle Palme in Naples

Tato Russo did not disappoint and yesterday, March 12, 2015 , at the premiere of his undisputed masterpiece, I Menecmi , he once again gave the audience at the Delle Palme in Naples a masterful performance and a comedy that did not bore or annoy them for a second.

The Neapolitan artist has been touring Italian theaters with his "Gemelli Napoletani" for at least twenty-five years, racking up well over 600 performances , all of them highly successful, despite the passing of the years. Tato Russo, however, always manages to give us an excellent performance, thanks in part to the support of his company of artists who are up to the task of each role.

The Menaechmi draws inspiration from Plautus's comedy, "Menaechmus ," but takes its own unique approach thanks to Tato Russo's Neapolitan reworking, which manages to rewrite the story in an original way while leaving certain distinctive aspects unchanged. The narrative centers on the adventures of two identical twin brothers, identical in every way, even in name, who, after years of separation due to the disappearance of one of them, find themselves in the same city without each other's knowledge. This ploy gives rise to an endless series of misunderstandings, ambiguities, misinterpretations, misinterpretations , and mistakes that result in hilarious situations that keep the audience entertained from start to finish.

The show is set in an ancient Neapolis , at times almost modern, recreated on stage by Tony Di Ronza's scenography which reproduces a section of a street with two typical Roman houses in the foreground and parts of statues and broken columns in the background, symbol of a now decadent city that moves between ruins and ancient glories.

All the scenes take place in this setting, dominated by the mastery and histrionics with which Tato Russo plays both protagonists, the two Menaechmis who haven't seen each other for 30 years. He pulls off a masterful transformation , perfectly juggling the twins' polar opposites. One cultured and refined, the other vulgar, provincial, and a con artist, they have two completely opposite personalities that Tato Russo highlights simply by changing their roles.

The ragged-robed Menaechmus will continually encounter friends and family of the elegantly cloaked Menaechmus, giving rise to the Commedia dell'Arte and its misunderstandings of which Plautus was a master. Russo's sidekicks, the parasitic servant Spazzola, and the dumb slave Messenione, played by Massimo Sorrentino and Rino Di Martino, lend an even more comical rhythm to the narrative, never managing to distinguish their masters, generating a chain of problems and double entendres that will also involve the wife and lover of the more refined Menaechmus.

Tato Russo's histrionics will lead to a hilarious finale, in which the riddles will be solved with various twists and turns, and in which the comedy once again takes up the themes of classicism, resorting to a metatheatre in which the fiction is revealed on stage itself.

A show not to be missed, full of comic gags and performed by excellent actors. On stage at the Teatro Delle Palme in Naples until March 15, 2015.