The show on St. Francis by Giovanni Scifoni
Actor Giovanni Scifoni’s theatrical tour continues with the show “Friar. St. Francis, the superstar of the Middle Ages”
There was, in the 13th century, Francis. Poised between a wealthy life and a military one, full of doubts and then certainties. Dressed in a habit, despite the fact that his father was a cloth merchant. A fool, a saint, a poet. A simple man who was able to break the mold while starting from the opposite, passing through contradictions, doubt, crisis.
A story from the Middle Ages, yet so relevant and alive in everyone’s memory, so powerful was the choice, and courageous, against the tide.
That must be why, 800 years after the Greccio Nativity, Roman actor and playwright Giovanni Scifoni is writing and performing a show about him, directed by Francesco Brandi.
A monologue entitled “Fra’. St. Francis, the superstar of the Middle Ages.”
accompanied by medieval lauds and ancient instruments, touring different parts of Italy from 2023.
He too, in his own way, has a seed of madness in him. Proposing a saint in theater in the third millennium? Talk about poverty? Make mention of “Sora nostra morte corporale”? To risk repeating him self since so many before him have presented the figure of the patron saint of Italy, whose name even the Pope has taken?
That is what Scifoni asked himself before embarking on this adventure.
But stage after stage he does this and more.
He manages to make people laugh without being irreverent.
He ensnares the viewer with themes from which nullu homo vivente can escape.
He makes us feel this saint even closer, even one of us.
As he says himself, “tens of thousands of texts have been written” about the Saint of Assisi. What can his play give? What can he bring that is new, without falling into rhetoric and banality?
Accompanied by three musicians Luciano di Giandomenico, Maurizio Picchiò and Stefano Carloncelli, the actor uses the stage to ask and ask questions: “Francis was not just a saint: he was an artist. A visionary capable of gathering crowds without microphones, who used the word like an actor and the body like a jester. His sermons were true performances, his language was revolutionary.”
Holiness is not an easy thing to explain nor a linear path for those who practice and aspire to it. It is, therefore, those ups and downs that are the key.
The temptation of ego and humility.
Between the two poles is humanity, which John Scifoni was willing and able to grasp and revive.
Next dates:
March 27, Lecce -Teatro Apollo
March 28, Brindisi – Nuovo Teatro Verdi
All tour dates here
Source and image
- spazio + spadoni
- Giovanni Scifoni