In the musical “Mare Fuori” Liberato meets Nino D'Angelo
Naples, exterior at night. Clothes hanging on the lines between one building and another in an alley in a working class neighborhood of the city. Suddenly a group of boys appears, all hooded and with bandanas covering their faces. No, it's not the set of a Liberato video: it's the beginning of the musical “Mare Fuori”, which begins with a baby gang invasion of the audience, complete with (real) scooters. A song with an '80s sound immediately takes us back to the Naples of the neo-melodic artists, rather than the rappers and musicians of the new generation who have allowed the Neapolitan scene to redeem itself on a national and international level: the Neapolitan singer plays it
Andrea Sannino, 38 years old, who with his “Abbracciame” became a hit on social media during the first lockdown (even winning a Gold Record, the only one of his career). In the musical he plays the role of the educator Beppe Romano: in the series the character is played by Vincenzo Ferrera, sitting in the audience at the Brancaccio in Rome, where the production landed yesterday 91 thousand tickets sold between Naples itself, Ragusa, Reggio Calabria, Cosenza, Turin, Parma, Milan, Assisi and Bari – practically a stadium and a half – which will remain in the capital until tomorrow and then again from 8 to 10 March.
The idea of transforming the phenomenon series on the hunger for redemption of the young inmates of a juvenile prison overlooking the sea of Naples into a musical, whose rights have been purchased by over twenty countries (from Germany to Israel, also passing through the United United – waiting for the cinematic spin-off expected by the end of 2024), is by Alessandro Siani, who wrote the show's screenplay together with the two authors of the original story, Cristiana Farina and Maurizio Careddu. The musical, produced by BestLive, the company that works on Siani's various shows, was put together quickly, while the cast of the series worked on the fourth season (the episodes of which have just been published on RaiPlay) : the two and a half hour musical is a summary of the first three seasons. The auditions began in September in Naples: 35,000 applied to participate, but only 22 of them took to the Teatro Augusteo in the Neapolitan city on December 14th for the premiere.
Many of the most beloved characters find themselves with a new face. Ciro Ricci is played by Emanuele Palumbo: it is not Geolier, but one of his namesakes. The actor who plays the boy who dies during a riot inside the penitentiary institute, Giacomo Giorgio, arrives unexpectedly at Brancaccio and is mobbed by small and large fans for selfies and autographs. The dancer Mattia Zenzolawinner of Amici last year (he beat Angelina Mango), plays the role of Carmine Di Salvo. Giulia Luziwho some will remember as Jolanda from I Cesaroni (but she also starred in David Zard's “Romeo and Juliet” and participated in a Sanremo Festival in 2017, paired with Raige: the song was titled “Togliamoci la lust”, not did not even reach the final), plays the role of
prison directorwho fans of the series associate with Carolina Crescentini (she was in the cast of the first three seasons). The character of Rosa Ricci, however, does not have a new face: she is played by the same actress from the series, Maria Esposito. And he also makes the same jokes as the series, which have become so popular that they are known even by those who have not even seen half an episode of “Mare Fuori”: “I know Rosa Ricci and who the fuck can you tell me what's going on?” (the fans in the audience literally go crazy, with applause and screams). Surprisingly the character of Edoardo Conte is missingwho in the series is played by Matteo Paolillo. Cardiotrapwho in the series is Domenico Cuomo, is here Angelo TD Caianello. The role of Clara Soccini, which she plays in the series Crazy Jwas instead awarded to the singer Giulia Molino, third place in “Amici” in 2020, the year of Gaia: “Origami at dawn” is one of the most Instagrammable moments of the show. The real protagonist, however, is the educator, who sees in the love behind bars between Carmine Di Salvo and Rosa Ricci, almost a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, the antidote for the tragic war between the respective criminal families: “This dead chain is about to break”.
History, in reality, is a pretext. And it almost goes into the background. The musical turns out to be above all a great homage to Naples. Not just in the musical choices – the musical direction is of Adriano Penninoalways the right hand man of Gigi D'Alessioand then Anna Tatangelo, Enzo Gragnaniello, Lina Sastri – always poised between modernity and tradition, with Geolier on one side and Nino D'Angelo on the other. There is it Postcard Naples from “A place in the sun”. The one that in his own way clumsily aspires to be international, with the scene in which Rosa and Carmine fantasize about their love which is equal to that of “La la land” in which Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone travel all over Los Angeles (except that instead of the Griffith Observatory there is the Royal Palace of Naples).
And the one that manages to be International in a credible and convincing way, thanks to .Set free: the mysterious Neapolitan singer at a certain point is explicitly mentioned (“I'm a prisoner and I like someone called Liberato, think about it”, says one of the actors, and shortly after starts “Me staje appennenn' amò”). The idea on paper is interesting. Between jokes that seem to come out of an episode of “Made in South” (“Do you know what the first thing I do when I arrive in Milan? I ask for information on returning to Naples”) e quotes that are sometimes even forced (the theater in which the kids rehearse, explains the educator, was “donated by the great Eduardo”; in the institute the kids want to listen to Sfera Ebbasta and Salmo, but the educator tries to make them discover “o' groove by Pino ”), the surrender is an irresistible “simm'e napule paisà“.
