M Ibn Al-Qarn

“If fascism is a criminal association, then I am the head of this criminal association.” Thus opens and closes – in a circular structure – “M, son of the century” by Massimo Popolizio, which Ray Cultura proposes in two parts on Saturday 22 and 29 October at 9.15 pm on Ray 5. Adaptation in thirty historical paintings begins Antonio Scorati’s novel “M The play – translated by Popolizio himself and Tommaso Ragno – in the last strip of the book and then returns to the same fateful sentence proclaimed by Benito Mussolini in Parliament at the moment of “Putting the Cross. Of Strength”.
Without providing a focus on historical facts, the play depicts the emergence of fascism. “It is a succession race between eighteen representatives – as Massimo Popolizio explains – which, far from any discourse, draws the public’s attention to the urgent pace of the rise of power, which occurred at a moment of profound weakness of institutions and parties.”
It is a story not enough known, particularly the story of the six years after the Great War, with the Fiume Project, the country’s sway towards socialist revolution, the reaction and spread of divisions, the daring March of Rome (whose centenary occurred in October 1922) and the relentless effectiveness For a political ideology that escapes the classifications of governance by violent action.
The protagonists are the founder of fascism at least as much as its supporting representatives, expressing themselves in the third and first person, Marinetti, D’Annunzio, Margherita Sarfati, opponents Nicola Bombacci, Pietro Nene and Giacomo Matteotti (also captured in the transmission of correspondence with wife Vilia), and Italo Balbo , demobilized from the Great War and a whole cloud of personnel from below. The protagonist is the entire national community, the “enigmatic country”, as if the outbreak is not “the host of this spreading virus but the host.”
A rendering of Massimo Popolizio, taken from the novel by Antonio Scorati; Collaboration with the dramatist Lorenzo Pavolini. Scenes by Marco Rossi, Gianluca Specca costumes, lighting by Luigi Biondi, video by Riccardo Fratti, voice by Alessandro Saviosi, movements by Antonio Bertosi.
With Massimo Popolizio, Tommaso Ragno, and with Riccardo Pucci, Gabriel Brunelli, Tommaso Cardarelli, Michele del Utri, Giulia Hetfield de Renzi, Raffaele Esposito, Flavio Francucci, Francesco Giordano, Diana Mania, Paolo Museo, Michel Usui and Alberto Onofretti, Santorris Pirolat, Santorris Pirolat.
Produced by the Piccolo Teatro di Milano-Teatrouropa, Teatro di Roma and Luce Cinecittà in collaboration with the Santacristina Theater Centre. Recorded at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan in September 2022. Felice Cappa Publishing Project, TV Directed by Marco Odeto, Executive Producer Serena Cemberini, Curated by Giulia Morelli.