Milan’s Teatro Franco Parenti celebrates its birthday with an orgy of Hamlets

One of the most respected Milanese theatres was born from an artistic collaboration between three pillars of Italian theatre: the director Franco Parenti, writer Giovanni Testori and up-and-coming young director Andrée Ruth Shammah. Together they formed the Salone Pier Lombardo which, since Parenti's death in 1989, has been run by Shammah, and renamed Teatro Franco Parenti. This getting-together of like minds happened 40 years ago, and in the meantime the theatre (or rather group of theatrical spaces, large and small) has became a touchstone for new writing and inventive staging. The adventurous spark still sets alight exciting projects, including that of its anniversary season, the Progetto Amleto (Project Hamlet).

It was in January 1973 that the curtain first went up on Testori's reworking of Shakespeare's Hamlet. “L'Ambleto” was a very free interpretation, setting the story in Lombardy and employing a mixture of Lombard dialect and invented language. Often comic, there is also a strong homosexual thread that runs through the play, so true enough there were many shocked critics and walkings out by audience members.

Testori had battled with censors in the past, and he continued to shock throughout his life, not only with his writing but also with his bold drawings and paintings; he was also an extremely sensitive and intelligent art critic. He died four years after Parenti, who played the eponymous anti-hero in the original production – Shammah directed.

For this anniversary Shammah wanted to acknowledge this strong opening gesture that sent shockwaves throughout the Italian theatrical community. Thus the Hamlet Project will be an orgy of Hamlets with Hamletas, Amleto², Examleto, Il Principe Amleto, Amletofelia, and even Kupenga Kwa Hamlet from Zimbabwe.

Brave indeed – but Andrée Ruth Shammah is that kinda lady!

Photo, from left:  l'Assessore alla Cultura, Moda e Design, Stefano Boeri ; Mayor of Milan, Giuliano Pisapia; Andrée Ruth Shammah; Piero Borghini, presidente della Fondazione Pier Lombardo in the Sala Alessi at Palazzo Marino.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.