CONVERSATIONS WITH TESTORI
Wednesday, June 21 – 9:00 p.m.
Garden of Casa Testori
Conversations with Testori is a tribute to the man, the intellectual, and the artist, inspired by the book-length interview of the same name by Luca Doninelli, presented on the occasion of the centenary of Giovanni Testori’s birth. The book—conceived and initiated by Testori himself—is a true spiritual testament, an incomparable document from both a historical-cultural and deeply human perspective.
The voice and charisma of Andrea Soffiantini—an actor discovered by Testori in his early career—bring to life on stage the most intimate traits of the man, the thinker, and the artist, reviving the many facets of his complex humanity. Thus re-emerges the self-portrait that Testori entrusted to his beloved disciple, Luca Doninelli, a portrait that—thirty years after the writer’s passing—invites us to delve deeper into his figure, to empathize and engage with his thought, and to rediscover the profound meaning of his existence.
“My nature is to have no home […] and yet, at the same time, I have done nothing but soil myself, compromise myself ever more deeply with this land, this city, these people—above all, those dearest to me.”
It is a visceral journey alongside Testori—it is Testori’s journey, and it is also ours: a restless journey of going and returning, stopping and setting out again, rebelling and surrendering, driven by something we both understand and fail to understand. It is a journey in which one never feels alone, in which each of us may recognize in Testori our own “patched-up,” “tattered,” “full of contradictions” humanity—and through him, perhaps, find it somewhat more composed, more unified, though never fully resolved.
It is a journey that invites us, together with the storyteller, to set aside “the ‘abstract furies’” that so often consume us in life and instead to hold on to “the fury for concrete things,” engaging with the materiality of existence—“often lowly, miserable, yet tremendously real.”
The words of the performer intertwine and blend with Testori’s own—rugged, inflamed, and alive—striking with great force and leaving a deep impression, regardless of one’s agreement or dissent. His is a language that challenges what cannot be said: sharp-edged, volcanic, “barbaric,” breaking away from bourgeois norms of political correctness; a language made of flesh, tearing through the surface and plunging into the “belly of the theatre,” where it can at last be fully spoken and liberated.
From the book by Luca Doninelli
with Andrea Soffiantini
directed by Paolo Bignamini
adaptation and assistant direction by Giulia Asselta
produced by Teatro de gli Incamminati
an idea by Casa Testori
Booking required for Casa Testori performances:
📧 eventi@casatestori.it
📞 02 36586877
