Teatro (alla deriva) al Giardino
The Teatro (alla deriva) al Giardino festival reaches its 15th edition and continues its journey at the Giardino dell'Orco, located at via Lago Averno no. 6 in Pozzuoli.
The initiative, conceived by Ernesto Colutta and Giovanni Meola, who has been its artistic director for the fourteenth year, features four performances, scheduled for July 5, 12, 19, and 26, starting at 7:00 PM, in a striking setting, without artificial lighting, away from the city's chaos, immersed in nature and with the magnificent natural backdrop of Lake Averno.
"This year we reach a truly important milestone: the first fifteen years of this venture.
And we return for the second year to a location that proved successful from every point of view last year.
'Teatro alla Deriva (al Giardino)' has transformed, moving from the raft inside the Terme-Stufe di Nerone to the verdant reality of the Giardino dell'Orco, changing form but confirming a closeness with the audience built over the years that is truly remarkable.
Seeing so many people who accepted the risk of the location change has struck me and the entire staff. Also because presenting the performances no longer in the evening but at 7:00 PM, in that time of day that accompanies us to sunset, with natural scenery all around that would move stones, has been overwhelming for all of us—audience, organizers, and, of course, artists.
My and our hope is to find all these people again and to welcome many new ones, convinced as we are that doing theater in this context can move, entertain, and stir consciences in an even more engaging way, thanks to the beauty of the nature in which we have decided to bring an immortal art like theater.
Let's move on to the details of the performances.
We begin on July 5 with a work on the tradition of fairy tales in the Western world, an original script by playwright and director Ferdinando Smaldone, who runs a small and spirited provincial space, the Teatro Rostocco in Acerra (NA). Here for years, surrounded by some outstanding actresses (like the two performers on stage, Noemi Pirone and Chiara Vitiello, splendid and magnetic) and a group of students who have grown with him, he carries forward a multifaceted theater, between comedies, dramaturgical explorations and, as in this case, inventions on the border between poetry and ironic remodeling of the canons of our shared history.
On July 12 we move to my direction and adaptation of a one-act play by Molière, working with a very talented young company that comes from the school of Teatro Madrearte in Villaricca (NA). The actor-manager and his five actresses must stage a performance without the financial means, and their transformation into different characters, in a breathless whirlwind, with gags and comic bits rooted in Commedia dell'Arte and in the encounter between work on animals and work on characters, results in a metatheatrical short circuit that is both entertaining and alienating, able to showcase their transformative qualities.
Prestigious debut on July 19: Flo will be with us, a singer-actress now known worldwide, remarkable interpreter of songbooks of different origins and languages, a regular presence at national and international festivals, who brings to the stage, together with the highly talented multi-instrumentalist Francesco Di Cristofaro, a work on the life and works of the great E. A. Mario, the author of 'La Leggenda del Piave' and other memorable songs that made him very famous, without many people remembering the vicissitudes of his personal life. With her style, between ironic and engaged, Flo tells and sings about this character, displaying her sensitivity and enormous abilities."
We close with another adaptation, freely drawn from Antonio Piccolo's Neapolitan translation of Hamlet. Starting from this immense work, Mario Autore (already nominated for the 2021 Nastri d'Argento) decides to stage only certain parts of the work, drawing from it an almost entirely new dramaturgy, in which he will be assisted by Melissa Di Genova, Peppe Cerrone, and Domenico Pinelli. The four of them will bring to life a whirlwind of characters, disguises, mystifications, journeys into human interiority and into the depths of its abysses, between unbridled comedy and explosive tragedy. As always when one decides to handle Shakespearean material.
The four works are in fact true world premieres, even if in some cases they have already been performed as previews or trial runs. This was a deliberate choice on my part, another bold bet that we want to try to win together with our audience."
And we return for the second year to a location that proved successful from every point of view last year.
'Teatro alla Deriva (al Giardino)' has transformed, moving from the raft inside the Terme-Stufe di Nerone to the verdant reality of the Giardino dell'Orco, changing form but confirming a closeness with the audience built over the years that is truly remarkable.
Seeing so many people who accepted the risk of the location change has struck me and the entire staff. Also because presenting the performances no longer in the evening but at 7:00 PM, in that time of day that accompanies us to sunset, with natural scenery all around that would move stones, has been overwhelming for all of us—audience, organizers, and, of course, artists.
My and our hope is to find all these people again and to welcome many new ones, convinced as we are that doing theater in this context can move, entertain, and stir consciences in an even more engaging way, thanks to the beauty of the nature in which we have decided to bring an immortal art like theater.
Let's move on to the details of the performances.
We begin on July 5 with a work on the tradition of fairy tales in the Western world, an original script by playwright and director Ferdinando Smaldone, who runs a small and spirited provincial space, the Teatro Rostocco in Acerra (NA). Here for years, surrounded by some outstanding actresses (like the two performers on stage, Noemi Pirone and Chiara Vitiello, splendid and magnetic) and a group of students who have grown with him, he carries forward a multifaceted theater, between comedies, dramaturgical explorations and, as in this case, inventions on the border between poetry and ironic remodeling of the canons of our shared history.
On July 12 we move to my direction and adaptation of a one-act play by Molière, working with a very talented young company that comes from the school of Teatro Madrearte in Villaricca (NA). The actor-manager and his five actresses must stage a performance without the financial means, and their transformation into different characters, in a breathless whirlwind, with gags and comic bits rooted in Commedia dell'Arte and in the encounter between work on animals and work on characters, results in a metatheatrical short circuit that is both entertaining and alienating, able to showcase their transformative qualities.
Prestigious debut on July 19: Flo will be with us, a singer-actress now known worldwide, remarkable interpreter of songbooks of different origins and languages, a regular presence at national and international festivals, who brings to the stage, together with the highly talented multi-instrumentalist Francesco Di Cristofaro, a work on the life and works of the great E. A. Mario, the author of 'La Leggenda del Piave' and other memorable songs that made him very famous, without many people remembering the vicissitudes of his personal life. With her style, between ironic and engaged, Flo tells and sings about this character, displaying her sensitivity and enormous abilities."
We close with another adaptation, freely drawn from Antonio Piccolo's Neapolitan translation of Hamlet. Starting from this immense work, Mario Autore (already nominated for the 2021 Nastri d'Argento) decides to stage only certain parts of the work, drawing from it an almost entirely new dramaturgy, in which he will be assisted by Melissa Di Genova, Peppe Cerrone, and Domenico Pinelli. The four of them will bring to life a whirlwind of characters, disguises, mystifications, journeys into human interiority and into the depths of its abysses, between unbridled comedy and explosive tragedy. As always when one decides to handle Shakespearean material.
The four works are in fact true world premieres, even if in some cases they have already been performed as previews or trial runs. This was a deliberate choice on my part, another bold bet that we want to try to win together with our audience."
Giovanni Meola
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TEATRO (alla deriva) al Giardino | complete 2026 program
Sunday, July 5
Teatro Rostocco
"BREAK CATENA"
dramaturgy – direction | Ferdinando Smaldone
with | Noemi Pirone – Chiara Vitiello
Three thousand years of Western culture demonstrate that the sacrifice of children, particularly daughters, is the mechanism through which Narrative reproduces itself culturally. Hence the idea of starting from two icons of storytelling and fairy tales, Cinderella and Snow White, to try to understand what happens after the inevitable 'And they all lived happily ever after.' Thanks to two creative and deeply sensitive performers, able to alternate poetry and suspension.
Teatro Rostocco
"BREAK CATENA"
dramaturgy – direction | Ferdinando Smaldone
with | Noemi Pirone – Chiara Vitiello
Three thousand years of Western culture demonstrate that the sacrifice of children, particularly daughters, is the mechanism through which Narrative reproduces itself culturally. Hence the idea of starting from two icons of storytelling and fairy tales, Cinderella and Snow White, to try to understand what happens after the inevitable 'And they all lived happily ever after.' Thanks to two creative and deeply sensitive performers, able to alternate poetry and suspension.
