The theatrical company OVER by Beppe Ranucci stages “La Mandragola”

Giving a touch of modernity to a classic comedy. It can be done without betraying its original spirit. In Livorno, there is a theater company called Over, made up entirely of members not younger than 60 years old. They are not professional actors, but for some years they have been working together under the guidance of Beppe Ranucci and have already tackled works by classic authors such as Pirandello or Eduardo De Filippo. At Estate a Villa Trossi, the festival promoted by the Trossi-Uberti Art Foundation and conceived by the Pietro Napoli Association, they will arrive on Friday, August 7th with “La Mandragola” by Niccolò Machiavelli. They will give their representation of a work considered a masterpiece of the Sixteenth Century, a classic of Italian dramaturgy. Under the direction of Beppe Ranucci, a cast of nine performers will take the stage at Villa Trossi Uberti at 9:30 pm.

Here is the list of the main actors and their respective characters: Gino Vergili (Siro), Luisella Toncelli (Liguria), Patrizia Cioni (Santilla), Santo Pagano (Fra’ Timoteo), Ginita Chiarini (Sostrata), Vincenzo Di Silvestro (Messer Nicia), Alba Di Marino (Lucrezia), Fabio Negro (Callimaco); Laura Benvenuti will be the host. The story told by Machiavelli is well-known: the beautiful Lucrezia and her rich husband Messer Nicia are unable to have children. On the advice of a self-proclaimed doctor, an extraordinary remedy is found. The woman must drink a miraculous potion before going to bed: the Mandrake. And the game is done! But there is a problem: whoever approaches the woman for procreation will die within 3-4 days. So what to do? A solution emerges that, amidst discussions and perplexities, seems to be the only viable one. The ending will reveal how it will all turn out.

In staging this classic, the direction, by eliminating all those elements that could weigh down the comedy, wanted to give the story a touch of pleasant modernity, without betraying its spirit and humor. Costumes and music are therefore more updated, while maintaining the fundamental core of this erotic-comic comedy set in Florence, but could also take place in Livorno. Compared to the original work, Beppe Ranucci has re-evaluated some roles to give more space to the female figure, generally sacrificed in the comedies of the Sixteenth Century. In addition, the show will be adapted to the setting and context of Villa Trossi, for an open-air theater style version.

The Over theater company has been operating for several years at the Nuovo Teatro delle Commedie and has staged comedies in past seasons such as “The miraculous win”, “Pensione Pomodoro”, one-act plays by Eduardo and Peppino De Filippo, “Miraculously”, “Beautiful misery”, “Nedo gets married”, “Condolence visit” by Achille Campanile. This season they are taking on a Renaissance theater classic like Niccolò Machiavelli’s La Mandragola and bringing their hilarious representation of the work to the stage for an evening of taste and fun.