Stefano Accorsi and Marco Baliani play with the verses of Orlando Furioso, at the Bellini Theater in Naples

Stefano Accorsi and Marco Baliano in Playing with Orlando at the Bellini Theater in Naples

Stefano Accorsi and Marco Baliani revisit, on the stage of the Bellini Theater, the famous lines of Orlando Furioso

Many may remember it as a long, boring and difficult to understand reading, "obligatory" because it is done in school. While seen and heard in the theater with the words, the voice and the narrating deeds of Marco Baliani need Stefano Accorsi,"The Orlando Furioso" it becomes surprisingly dynamic, versatile, pleasant and light, sometimes even ironic and fun.

Already a success always inspired by the famous knightly poem by Ludovico Ariosto, but with the title reversed "Furious Orlando", the director and playwright Marco Baliani and the actor Stefano Accorsi they consolidate the duo and the company with a further theatrical experiment, with a very appropriate title "Playing with Orlando".

Both animated by the mission of transforming Orlando Furioso into a public but dramatized "reading", they bring the poem back to its origins, just as Ludovico Ariosto himself did in the sixteenth century bringing court poem to court between Ferrara and Mantua. Marco Baliani and Stefano Accorsi play on stage, in an hour and a half of show, with the original lines of the Orlando Furioso, sometimes respecting them, sometimes cutting them, breaking them, updating them, reviving them and revisiting them, in an unprecedented and rhythmic ballad "in Ariosto rhymes and a singular battle" that transports the viewer between the "weapons" and "loves" of "women" and " knights ".

To do narrator on stage he is a passionate, elegant and ironic Stefano Accorsi, intending to tell the curious spectators the love affairs of Orlando and Angelica and of Ruggiero and Bradamante, while Marco Baliani, director and author of the show, has here the role of his comic shoulder and fool, continually intent on tending traps and inventing verses.

Playing with Orlando at the Bellini Theater in Naples

Both on stage jokes and verses are launched and invented, all strictly rhyming, sometimes improvising and "mimicking" duels, jousting, adventures and amorous skirmishes, using, as the only scenic "instrument" their voice and their words only, demonstrating that to make theater you do not need scenographic frills and props, but only the evocative power of the word, able to enchant and trigger the viewer's imagination.

Also the scenography here it has an evocative power, being inhabited exclusively by the works by Mimmo Paladino, statues of colored horses that make up the scenic background, in a chivalrous theme, and some overlapping wooden crates, where the two actors engage in "jousting" and "duels", like small "micro-scenes" on which perform during the unfolding of the story.

"Playing with Orlando" it's a'original and surprising immersion in the chivalric world of Ariosto which demonstrates how this poem can be traveled and crossed in infinite ways, passing through infinite stories, legends and digressions, to always reach the central strand of the work: love contrasted and disputed. An unparalleled stage experiment not to be missed, which delves into the universal meaning of the events and feelings that give life to its characters.

"Playing with Orlando" it's on stage until 5 March 2017 at the Bellini Theater in Naples. Dates, times and prices available in our article.

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Written by Valentina D'Andrea
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