Igniting performance through the power of restless energy – By N. Yakova
Just as vocation presents itself to priests, art knocks on Federica’s door. She says: it “tuzzulea”(Neapolitan for “softly knocks”).
You ask yourself what it wants, where it wants to take you. If you pretend nothing is happening, it comes knocking again,
“rituzzulea”, and, in the end, it drags you along.
Federica follows spontaneous, unforced things and is not interested in quantity but in the quality of art. She does not count numbers on social media and does not plan communication tactics or marketing techniques, at least not obsessively. She is already quite caught up in the action, on stage or on the television set.
She has no memory of her life in which there is no theater. Born and raised in the Sanità neighborhood she debuts in theater as a child, performing in prestigious Neapolitan theater such as the Mercadante and the Politeama.
Her passion for theater is then supported by maestro Gianni Lamagna, from Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, who brings her closer, more specifically, to the world of Neapolitan musical and theatrical tradition. Subsequently, she perfects her technique with Tonino Taiuti, also elaborating her knowledge of two founding authors of Neapolitan theatrical culture such as A. Petito and E. Scarpetta.
She moves around any form and genre of theater: from cabaret with the comic trio Ditelo Voi, to Raffaele Viviani’s theater with Nello Mascia up to playing contemporary authors such as A. Ruccello and E. Moscato.
And enjoys working and giving her contribute to Arca’s Theater in Napoli.
Her debut in television comes at a very young age in the mini-series ‘O professore (The professor) with Sergio Castellitto and in 2015, in addition to participating in the screenplay, she directed her first short film entitled Venere (Venus).
Federica is the protagonist of an episode in the docu-fiction Camorriste-seconda stagione (Camorriste-second season) and we find her in prime time on Rai Tre in the documentary 4 giorni per la libertà (4 days for freedom) written by Maurizio De Giovanni and directed by Massimo Ferrari.
Constantly immersed in research, she is always involved in writing and dramaturgy projects. Her talent extends in dance and music as well. She plays the classical guitar and writes melodies and lyrics that will soon come to life in the project: SoLa-SoLa (concert in A minor for relatives and non-relatives). The title SoLa-SoLa is a play on words between the musical notes Sol La and the Italian word sola, which means alone.
Her family taught her to recognize beauty and to find it and appreciate it, in every context. The neighborhood where she was born, despite the many difficulties, forced her in a certain way to learn early and grow up quickly.
She loves her parents and her older brother and is grateful to them as they have always supported each other and have always been united.
F.T.: ”I will always be grateful to my father for everything he taught me. I wouldn’t have known what to do with pocket money! My mother taught me that there is a solution to everything. My brother is half of my heart and he is my sentence. He is my point of reference that I can’t give up. I am very lucky and I also feel lucky to have grown up in the Sanità neighborhood. First of all because I learned to cross the street when I was very little. If you learn to cross the street here you can walk anywhere! (nde. smiles)Then because it is a place where contrasts are strongly experienced.”
Compared to the rest of the city the Sanità neighborhood is a world apart. It is animated by a truly particular and very suggestive energy.
It lies on a cemetery therefore, as Federica points out, the energy of death grows in the people who live there. Even the relationship that the locals have with death is an uncommon one.
F.T.: “Death here is so close that it becomes your best friend. On the other hand, it is the only certainty we have in life! What should we fear?”
Federica moves as the magma moves inside Vesuvius. This is the image she has of herself as an artist.
An image of the volcano in its internal bubbling. The restlessness, the perpetual movement of the magma that never explodes but that wants to listen and know what it is made of.
Contrary to what one might believe, as a woman she is melancholic. This also happened to the great Antonio de Curtis, known as Totò.It may be that Federica, having been born in the same neighborhood as the Prince of Laughter, has in herself collective memory made of passion and damnation therefore she experience both states of mind.
F.T.: “I am very attached to the figure of Totò having been born and lived just 50 meters from the house where he was born. I feel his energy but I don’t want to struggle like he did to affirm that identity that he already had and which was very strong. I accept my melancholy and it is precisely that in my opinion that allows me to meet the characters I play and that moves the magma that is inside me.”
Federica’s life is made of theater and smells of theater even so is not easy to make a living from theater in Napoli.
F.T.: “Making a living from theate in Napoli is quite difficult. Despite this, I know that if I left Napoli I would be a different artist and I would have very few things to tell. I would focus the attention on theaters which I believe should take a different direction. First of all, by dealing with the training of young artists who not only need to learn acting but who need to be educated on how to sell themselves, as well as on the technical and bureaucratic aspect of theater. Then it is important that we all understand that in theater, the performance is not the only thing that matters.”
But this seems to be not important and this superficiality passes to the new generations. There is a lack of education in critical sense, in analysis. The new generations are used to considering the external aspect more than the internal one.
Is reading inside scary? Knowing yourself with the risk of finding emptiness could be traumatic and the ability to analyze your essence implies the establishment of a cultural background. Without an analysis you cannot tell something like Raffaele Viviani or Benedetto Croce did at the time. Today the only thing that counts is the performance, the performance as an end in itself.
F.T.: “We live in a world of exhibition and this is one of the reasons why being an artist and living in theater in Napoli is even more difficult, because you don’t recognize yourself. Before, however, actors recognized themselves in the art they did. Today, all that matters is making people laugh, laughing at all costs. Otherwise it doesn’t work.
I believe that you have to make people laugh with awareness and cry with awareness. This is what theater has taught us, especially in Napoli.”
In addition to this she is also unforgiving the lack of collaboration between theaters. According to her no network is created among them and their goal is reduced only to making the best season program of the other theater, without considering cultural evolution.
F.T.: “We should be one thing because we are Napoli and the theater of Napoli. When I say this I refer to permanent theaters and I mean,
for example, if a theater is called Viviani, it means that a young actor who wants to study Viviani will have a point of reference. Sadly this does not happen.”
Generally, comparing Theater vs Cinema the most common answer given in the interviews, by the actors so far is: “I love theatre, but you can’t eat with theater. Cinema makes you eat.”
Theater, as Federica points out, belongs to the actor. Without a stage, without a costume, without even a text, if there is an actor in any space where theater can be done, that space can become theater.
However, she appreciates cinema and the world that works for it.
Even if the truth in this historical moment is that we are forced, unfortunately, to replace even TV series in place of cinema.
F.T.: “I would like to do cinema also to have the satisfaction of seeing myself again. I am also intrigued by the fact that the voice instrument in cinema is used differently than in theater. Maybe you can be more intimate, more sincere while in theater you always have to throw everything out. Sometimes I think it is important to act inside, even for yourself. If I were to take part I would like to be part of the technical cast as I find it more fun, more challenging, more active and with shorter waits“.
The condition of the artist in Naples remains more precarious than that of a common worker, regardless of the art form to which he dedicates himself. Yet artists can work as much as a worker. The situation worsens with the courtship of the scam of artificial intelligence, which despite not being so intelligent manages to win over generations of empty brains. Therefore, true artists are even more penalized. What to do, run away? Federica’s answer is all in one of her favorite songs which is Voce ‘e Notte (Voice in the night) written by E. De Curtis – E. Nicolardi, and, precisely, in the second verse that is rarely listened to.
F.T.: “(sings) …Si te vène ‘na smania ‘e vulé bene/ ‘na smania ‘e vase córrere p’ ‘e vvéne/‘nu fuoco che t’abbrucia comm’a che/ vàsate a chillo, che te ‘mporta ‘e me?…
(If you feel a desire to love/a desire for kisses running through your veins/ a fire that burns you like I don’t know what/ kiss him, what do you care about me?) But he knows that she won’t kiss the other because she’s not in love with him.
This represents for me the love for Napoli.
Even if I had to go to another city I could never love it as I love Napoli.”
How to understand the spirit that characterizes the Neapolitan soul?
Art is in everything and is the key to reading life, to explain it, to interpret its events, causes and feelings and in Napoli every wall and every scent, the places and people are imbued with art and its memory, even those who do not know it.
Eduardo De Filippo, and he was not the only one, argued that this city is an open-air theater, a constant source of inspiration for sensitive souls, for artists and dreamers, for poets and for scammers. Through his art, he told us, with wonderful nuances, about a bourgeois Napoli, a Napoli that wanted to be Italian. He showed us the Naples of the war and the post-war period. He gave us a mirror in which we can still see that after more than 50 years nothing has changed.
Federica recommends going to the theater and watch Mia Famiglia (My family) by E. De Filippo, which is a very current text that not only explains Napoli but is currently a mirror of Italy as a whole and perhaps even the world!
F.T.: “In Italy, we still live on beliefs, prejudices, gossip.We still close ourselves off and become bigots. In “Mia Famiglia”, the character Rosaria Stigliano confides in her father the lie she told society so as not to be judged. This happens all the time. We build a facade by covering our true essence for fear of judgment. This has gotten worse with the advent of social media.”
To grasp an aspect of the more strictly Neapolitan spirit, you should know the works of Raffaele Viviani, a less bourgeois, more popular, sanguine and carnal author who has captured the authenticity of our spirit, for better or for worse and beyond false moralism.
F.T.: “Viviani takes you to the port, to the gallery, in the alleys of Naples and asks why there is suffering and wickedness for a loaf of bread when we could make many and divide them among ourselves! Today’s problems have always existed and these authors, through art, showed them to us and suggested a possible solution.”
Typical of the Neapolitan spirit is the dream. The dream that is told, that is amplified, that is feared and that is interpreted to understand and to play the lottery numbers. These are not clichés, they are simply facts that belong to that theatrical Napoli that still exists, coexists and resists with a more globalized Napoli.
Federica, who is also the muse and the subject of a successful song at Sanremo, also dreams. Her dream starts from Napoli to get everywhere.
F.T.: “I realized that I am not ambitious enough. I would like to enter the perspective of building the future, more than dreaming I like the idea of making plans and working to make them happen. I dream of becoming ambitious and building my ambition while keeping my feet on the ground.”
Meanwhile, the Neapolitan musician Enzo Gragnaniello choses her for the recited parts of his concert Neapolis Mantra, directed by Mula Sungani.
Federica is also working on a project for Officine San Carlo based on Raffaele Viviani’s work ‘La bohème dei comici‘ (The bohème of comedians), which is scheduled to debut at the end of November at the Officine San Carlo headquarters, curated by Francesco Saponaro, with the Allert Comedy collective.