
The actor’s journey through theater and identity in a family of artists – By N. Yakova
Meeting a myth
A late morning at the end of September, after having seen the picturesque Neapolitan scenes of the city center, today populated by a considerable number of automatons hypnotized by the smart phone, I set out to meet one of the myths of my childhood.
I had saw him as a child at the Sannazaro theater in Napoli, in the troupe of Luisa Conte on ‘’Nu bambeniello e tre San Giuseppe’ (A baby and three Saint Josephs), in which he played the role of a lawyer. Later I recognized him on television: I was amused and moved by his funny and touching interpretation of Gaetano, in ‘I casi sono due’ (There are two cases) with the Giuffrè brothers. In the 90s I followed the television program Seven Show where, punctually, his cabaret with Mimmo Sepe was clean, dynamic, engaging. The two had an extraordinary understanding. What to say about Giorgio? The long-suffering lover in Troisi’s film ‘Pensavo fosse amore invece era un calesse’ (I thought It was love instead it was a carriage). Everyone remembers him. Even today when I joke with friends we quote him by saying: “E’ tutta colpa mia! E’ tutta colpa mia!” (It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!).
I was early and so was he. We met and set off in search of a café that had a free table, in a place that wasn’t too chaotic. The street was crowded with tourists stopping in front of the shoe and clothing stores, and with long lines outside the bars that churned out pizzas, taralli and sfogliatelle.
On both sides of the street, there were stands of African, Indian and Neapolitan vendors, displays of the most disparate objects such as antiques, accessories, souvenirs, jewelry and home supplies, captured the attention, slowing down the passage even further.
Finally we found a spot outside a café.
I was about to interview Corrado Taranto and I was excited to hear his story, from his own words, and to know what he thought about theater, he who has lived, lives and does theater.
We chatted for over two hours, drank more coffee. He told me about his mother, who was beautiful, and was a dancer at the Rome Opera House; about his father, his uncle, about Totò and other actors. He told me about a time, and about men and women, with a style, a very special attitude.
In a time marked by sips of coffee and puffs of cigarettes he answered my questions before I asked them. He told me about some of his trips to Europe and the times he visited the United States, telling me anecdotes that confirm that Italy, of America, only imitates the worst.
He told me about his theatrical activity and his life, made of sacrifices and waivers but imbued with art and wonderful experiences and satisfactions. When I asked how he sees his life, whether as a play, a movie or a TV Series, he answered me “Like a Van Gogh painting!”. It is no coincidence that he loves impressionists and the Dutch painter is among his favorites.
During the conversation I noticed that he himself is like a Van Gogh painting, because he is strongly expressive, colorful, and with a strong connection to the human experience.
From this long and fantastic chat I will share something to give you just an idea of the beautiful person and the great professional that Corrado Taranto is.
The determination of the character and the evolution of the interpreter
Actor, author and director. Corrado is the son of Carlo Taranto and nephew of Nino,
two brothers, from the Forcella neighborhood, who have greatly contributed to a piece of history of Neapolitan theater, reaching fame also in Italian cinema and television.
He began early to tread the boards of the stage in a period in which the theater was characterized by that “frost” that Eduardo De Filippo well defined.
His notable communicative and expressive skills emerged very early so much so that, in elementary school the teachers sent him, during the break, to other classes to tell the stories of Hercules and Samson, and he also participated with some appearances in Italian musical films called musicarelli.
Although being the son of an artist he had to work hard and a lot to define his own identity and achieve great goals, regardless of the family name.
He formed, as a teenager, a cabaret group with two other boys with whom he rehearsed old gags that his father used to do and sketches written by himself.
After a period of rehearsals, the trio performed in a place in the Cavalleggeri D’Aosta district, in the Fuorigrotta neighborhood.
C.T.: “It was a sort of basement, damp, where there was an audience… Saying that they were low-level people is an understatement. They were almost delinquents. At a certain point in the performance, someone started making fun of us and I reacted. We were forced to run away, chased by about thirty people with broken bottles, knives in their hands… This was the initial impact in the world of entertainment.”
At the end of high school he was determined to pursue a career as an actor. Since it was not an easy path at the time, his father tried to dissuade him and so he signed him up for an examination test to become an employee at IBM.
The young Corrado showed up for the test but got all 200 answers wrong, on purpose, showing his determination to follow the artistic path. It was at that moment that he officially started his acting career.
The official debut
The young Taranto formed a cabaret group: “I Napolamanti” (Napoli lovers) consisting of 7 actors.
C.T.: “One day Mico Galdieri called me and told me he wanted to stage ‘Assunta Spina’, a piece that requires 40 actors. He asked me if I knew anyone. I brought the actors from my group. There were 7 of us and we earned, in total, 70,000 lire per evening, 10,000 lire each. The money was little but fortunately we were friends with the chef of a restaurant called Ciccibacco, who gave us a timbale of macaroni each, every evening.”
The official debut with ‘Assunta Spina’ in which he played the usher of the court was an excellent start. However, he was not satisfied.
He wanted to start from the bottom and experiment with every type of theater to obtain a solid, complete theatrical training. So he proposed himself to Leonardo Ippolito who at that time was preparing the Neapolitan drama ‘Papà è Natale’ (Dad, it’s Christmas) Corrado was hired and left for a long tour alongside Nunzio Gallo, Tecla Scarano and Patrizio, a talented young singer who lost his life at only 30 years old.
After the tour, his uncle Nino offered him a role in ‘ ‘A Figliata’(sonship), an opera by Raffaele Viviani, directed by the author’s son.
C.T.: ”Even though it was a small role in the third act, I wanted to do it because uncle Nino was there, Dolores Palumbo was there and Vittorio Viviani was directing. I spent my days next to him, hearing stories and anecdotes about his father who I consider the Neapolitan author, not Eduardo. Eduardo is a great mask of the Italian theater, Pirandello-like. And he was undoubtedly great. His interpretation in ‘Il Sindaco del Rione Sanità’, in the 1979 version, which was also broadcast on television, is monstrous. But, I repeat, the Neapolitan author par excellence is Raffaele Viviani.”
The ‘old school’ and today’s theatre
That gig was followed by others. His theatrical activity opened up to a wide range seeing him share the stage with actors of great fame such as Carlo and Nino Taranto, Dolores Palumbo, Mario Scaccia, Carlo and Aldo Giuffre’, Luisa Conte, Giacomo Rizzo and the film set with Massimo Troisi, Marcello Mastroianni, Jack Lemmon, Antony Quinn, Anna Galiena, Alessandro Gassmann. He was directed by famous theatre directors including Vittorio Viviani, Carlo Giuffrè Luigi De Filippo, Giacomo Rizzo and, in the cinema, by equally well-known directors including Ettore Scola, Massimo Troisi, Michael Radford, Luigi Comencini, Carlo Cecchi, Carlo Vanzina. The versatility he achieved as an interpreter is also due to this great school. In the 90s, together with Mimmo Sepe, he formed a cabaret duo that won awards and achieved great success throughout Italy in theaters and on television.
The opportunity to work with professionals of that caliber and to achieve such goals is no longer available. First of all because the profession of the actor has radically changed. “What was once a craft for interpreters is now a job for reciters” says Corrado.
Once there was the openness to grow and learn, to enrich oneself in order to evolve, on stage as well as on set. Currently, not all professional actors have the ability and the competence to carry out this profession.
“Theatre is blood and belly” underlines Corrado, in fact the theatrical performance must be realistic, if it is made only and exclusively of technique it becomes cold, aseptic.
If for a whole life you drive a Ferrari, experimenting with a certain performance, and then they give you a Ford, you realize the big difference. You can understand this. But if people are used to driving a Ford and don’t know a Ferrari, they will always be convinced that a Ford is the best possible car.
Corrado lived the art of theater in its heyday and witnessed its transformation. A change that before happening in the artistic field happened to the human being who is loosing humanity. There is a remedy for this issue and it is culture, to which Italy, bowed to the disposable model, gives less and less space and consideration. Therefore theaters close, and those that survive adapt more often to television schemes aiming for numbers instead of the diffusion of culture. Cinema distributes little or not at all Italian films.
Television and social media contribute to worsening the situation. At this rate, artistic quality struggles to emerge and cultural evolution ends up in oblivion.
Without memory, no discussion about the future has any foundation. Corrado is a master at telling stories, at passing on memory through narration. He does it not only through theater and cinema but also through literature. In addition to his work as an actor and director, he is the author of films, plays and also of several books. To learn about an important piece of history of Neapolitan theater and understand the ethics of the profession, ‘Taranto. Zio papà, papà zi-zio’ (Taranto. uncle dad, dad uncle-uncle) (2008, published by Cuzzolin) and ‘Noi…i Taranto’ (We…Taranto) (2014, published by Il Papavero) are a treasure, a memory in pages of the artistic and professional life of the Taranto brothers that he, as a son, nephew and actor, tells through images and anecdotes that are little or not at all known.
They are precious moments full of humanity, ethics, feelings.
In times far from political correctness, everything was more authentic. Sincerity was appreciated, it was a value. Those who lived through that magnificent theater season were honest people even if not all the actors had a good character. ‘Noi…i Taranto’ was also brought on stage by Corrado himself featuring his story accompanied by sketches of his uncle, songs, gaining the consensus and affection of the public.
C.T.: “We know about good football teams that are made up of players with a bad temper. There must be arguments, arguments strengthen the team. Always in civility and with the utmost sense of respect, but the vaffanculo is a wonderful thing! When I went out to go to the theater my father would tell me – don’t forget the briefcase. – he meant the vaffanculo briefcase. The time comes when you have to use it.”
Napoli and the change of scene
This is not Hollywood and the loud voices of the people, the smell of food, the smoke and the noise of cars in traffic, catapult you into a dimension that, for those who live in North America is almost surreal. In the city of Napoli you experience an “ordered disorder”. Our chaos is purely Greek in origin and, as such, we Neapolitans experience it as a fall, an abyss, an open space. It is in fact open to everyone and everything, even Eduardo De Filippo said it: “Napule è ‘nu paese curioso è ‘nu teatro antico, sempre apierto…” (Napoli is a curious town, an ancient theater, always open…). However, what once meant abandoning oneself to the contemplation of a slow walk, made of colors, sounds and scents has now transformed into the observation of a people who live by inertia, allowing themselves to be globalized and allowing the transformation of identities and principles that once characterized them.
Corrado feels great love and hate toward his hometown. A few years ago he moved to a quiet place in Abruzzo, far from the hustle and bustle of Napoli, which once had the highest number of theaters in Italy and now probably has the highest number of pizzerias!
An unbearable decadence, for him who lived it in a period in which going to the theater was an integral part of the daily life of the Neapolitan people. In Abruzzo you live well and Vasto, the place where he lives, is still on a human scale. Although it is small, it has six theaters and is characterized by a beautiful community where art is highly appreciated.
There Corrado continues to be active in cinema, television, literature and theater fields, even if in the latter, understandably, he has become more selective.
He also dedicates himself to his four grandchildren, with whom he travels and to whom he transmits stories and memories of family and of those who once made people laugh, cry and think, through the art of theatre.
The profession of the actor, as it was once conceived, which enriched and made people grow beyond the professional level, is a concept now light years away.
Corrado has worked hard since his debut, nothing has ever been given to him. He did not reach the limelight for a number of followers obtained by performing vulgarity or posting on social media any nonsense that attracted attention. He has conquered his audience, made up of real people, scene after scene, with talent, preparation and sweat and, above all, with great respect for his profession and for the roles he interprets.
When he goes on stage or shows up on the set he is punctual and prepared and, also in films, ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is… “Good the first one!”
His father carlo was surely proud of his son’s talent. He never explicitly told him, however, shortly before he died he was offered the role of ‘L’Avaro’ (The Miser) by Moliere and before accepting he asked Corrado “are you in the cast?” Corrado replied that due to his age he could not play the part of Leandro, his son, so they would probably offer him another role. Carlo said “well, you know how to handle it”. Unfortunately, after a week Carlo began to feel ill and shortly after he died.
C.T.: “I understood that my father appreciated what I did, apart from the success of both the public and the critics, when I staged ‘Don Fausto’ by Petito which was a parody of Goethe’s ‘Faust’. I played Faust. A two and a half hour show in which I had legs like a snail and a stick. It was tiring but I loved it. It was very elegant, it was a fairy tale. My father came to see me twice. The first time I invited him, the second time he didn’t tell me he was coming. He wasn’t busy and he came. My mother told me that she saw him getting ready and asked him – where are you going?- He answered – a vedè ‘o guaglione!- (to see the boy!)
I understood that I could continue. But he never said to me – bravo!- or – compliments! He never gave me any advice. Only once, we were at the Sannazaro theater for rehearsals and he took a chair and said to me – sit here and steal.-
Corrado Taranto is a gentleman, polite and with the enthusiasm of a boy who puts into life and into every performance. He is a real character. His charisma and his passion for the story enchanted me, keeping me glued to the chair. I learned important nuances of a past that is fundamental to that Neapolitan culture that is not made of clichés but of artistic and human history, of sensitivity and ethics once widespread throughout the country and which now remain unfortunately closed in a treasure chest to be told by those who, like him, have lived a wonderful life!
Suddenly I realized it was early afternoon and I had to say goodbye even though I wished those stories of pieces of life and theater would never end. I know for sure that when I will return to my country I will go to see him on stage to laugh and be moved again.
Corrado is currently busy preparing ‘L’imbroglione onesto’ (The honest cheat) by Raffaele Viviani, a show reworked and directed by Fabio Gravina, which will be on stage at the Teatro Prati in Rome from January 10th to February 16th 2025.