At Sistina the comedy-Matroska ‘Eduardiana’ of Salemme

At 67, a few months after the feast of his first 50 years of theater (in 2026), Vincenzo Salemme Continue to amaze. One of the few Italian authors continuously writing new and all successful comedies (about thirty to date) of which he is also director and actor, now he returns to the scene with a new and at the same time ancient show, different yet very similar to the others in which his stylistic figure is clear and very clear. ‘Every promise is debt’ from 12 March for a month at the Sistine Theater in Rome where it arrived after being already in other cities, the last of which Turin, always recording the sold out (for the many requests the Sistine prolonged the programming: initially it had to be staged from 12 to 23 March; then it arrived on April 6, then, after the debut, the show was extended until April 13).

It is a different comedy, born, as Salemme said to AGI, from the ‘rediscovery’ of Eduardo’s dramaturgy. Despite he made his debut with De Filippo at the age of 18 and was with him in the company, together with his son Luca De Filippo, until 1984, the year of Eduardo’s death, Salemme said he really understood the scope of his dramaturgy after having staged ‘Christmas in Cupiello’ in 2024. And this revelation was the push that led him to rewrite (tens of times) ‘each promise is debt’.

“My things usually tell more extreme events, this is their peculiarity – he said to AGI – This time I tried to remain myself, softening the transition between an extreme farcesco and an extreme extreme, between one emotion and another”. In the end the result is surprising. A narrative structure made of paintings that follow one another with their own narrative autonomy and partly interscambious, as if to enjoy their autonomy. On the scene Salemme is the reference star around which everything runs out – except in the first scene and in the central one – and the situations that follow one another at a pressing rhythm (the same author said that “this time it was impossible to imagine an interval”) are like raw dolls of a matrioska on which the comediographer of Bacoli paints subjects and writes jokes. One within the other, functional to a story that ends with an epilogue that amazes and displaces the public.

The story is that of the owner of the ‘Croce and Delizia’ pizzeria of Bacoli, Benedetto Croce, played by Salemme, who is shipwrecked with his children and with the waiter and, sleepwalking, makes a vote for the holy protector of Bacoli (city of Salemme himself), Sant’Anna, to donate a large figure referred to until the cent (5,557,382.60 euros). A vulgar and greedy influencer, a black dry (Rosa Miranda), spreads the audio of the vote and trigger everyone’s appetites. Starting with Father Cristoforetto (Nicola Acunzo) who, as parish priest of the Church who bears the name of the patron saint, claims to boast a religious primacy on the vote. But there is also the mayor of Bacoli (Lombard Jeremiah) to beat cash because Sant’Anna – he claims – is the protector of the country he administers. Or Benedetto’s brother (Domenico Aria) or the Indian ‘chief-chief’, Neapolitan in incognito, who passes through pizza chef (Vincenzo Borrino). Benedetto Croce tries in vain to explain that the vote’s money does not exist, but nobody seems to believe him.

And so from the comparison with the various ‘pretenders’ to the money of the vote in Sant’Anna, the most hilarious comic situations and sketches are born in the comedies of Salemme. Where the dear situations in Totò abound – which remains a comic point of reference – starting from the inevitable victim -Spalla (the waiter, played by the now inseparable Antonio Guerriero), therefore the comedy that arises from the lexical blunders, misunderstandings, grotesque situations and unlikely characters that the actor and director of Bacoli this time he also goes to fish in his vast and consolidated in his vast and consolidated repertoire. In fact, the moments in which you laugh for situations and jokes that originate in the past, from ‘And outside Nevica’ It is ‘Bellavista Pastry’ to ‘An exaggerated party’.

This time, however, Salemme also inserts purely Eduardian elements. Not only in themes, but also in the characters. Above all that of the daughter (Fernanda Pinto), whose seriousness a little gloomy who somehow clashes with the rest of the characters remembers that of Lina Sastri, a young interpreter of Luca Cupiello’s daughter in Eduardo’s comedy. And his outburst, in which he asks his father to want to go to Boston to be free to follow his dream of being the singer, followed by that of his son (Gennaro Guazzo) who instead is always with his cell phone because hers is “An incredibly unhappy generation“, It represents a sort of watershed between the farce and the drama, between the light comedy and the theater committed. A moment that forces the viewer to reflect and almost to feel guilty for not having understood the inner drama of the two boys. It is only a moment, but then. Then the comedy returns and we start to laugh again. Until a blow is an unexpected stroke that gives meaning to the whole of the comedy. Salemme, puts a strong question of morality to the public.