Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni was born in Manciano, Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, the son of Isolina Papini, a fabric inspector, and Luigi Benigni, a bricklayer, carpenter, and farmer. His first experiences as a theatre actor took place in 1972, in Prato. During that autumn he moved to Florence where he took part in some experimental theatre shows, some of which he also directed. In 1975, Benigni had his first theatrical success with Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, written by Giuseppe Bertolucci.
Benigni became famous in Italy in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called Onda Libera, on RAI2, by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted the satirical piece “anthem of the melt body” (L’inno del corpo sciolto, a hymn to defecation).A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. His first film was 1977’s also by Giuseppe Bertolucci.
Afterwards, he appeared during a public political demonstration by the Italian Communist Party, with which he was a sympathiser, and on this occasion he took in his arms and dangled the national leader Enrico Berlinguer, a very serious figure. It was an unprecedented act, given that until that moment Italian politicians were proverbially serious and formal. It represented a breaking point, after which politicians experimented with newer habits and “public manners”, attended fewer formal events and, generally speaking, modified their lifestyle in order to exhibit a more popular behaviour. Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling the Pope John Paul II something impolite during an important live TV show (”Wojtylaccio”, meaning “Bad Wojtyla” in Italian).Benigni is an improvisatory poet (poesia estemporanea is a form of art popularly followed and practiced in Tuscany), appreciated for his explanation and recitations of Dante’s Divina Commedia by memory. He has reached over 45% Italian households with his lectures on the Divine Comedy.
During 2006 and 2007, Benigni had a lot of success touring Italy with his 90-minute “one man show” show TuttoDante (Everything About Dante). Combining current events and memories of his past narrated with an ironic tone, Benigni then begins a journey of poetry and passion through the world of the Divine Comedy.
TuttoDante has been performed in numerous Italian piazzas, arenas, and stadiums for a total of 130 shows, with an estimated audience of about one million spectators. Over 10 million more spectators watched the TV show, Il V° dell’Inferno (”The 5th of Hell”), broadcast by Rai Uno on 29 November 2007, with re-runs on Rai International. Audience reaction to the show was so strong that Benigni stated: “It’s been incredible work. I’ll treasure this experience as one of the sweetest, most popular, and emotional memories of my life.”
Benigni began North American presentations of TuttoDante with an announcement that he learned English to bring the gift of Dante’s work to English speakers. The English performance incorporates dialectic discussion of language and verse and is a celebration of modernity and the concept of human consciousness as created by language.
