Comicity, imitation and stage — Interview with Francesca Cirone and Gigi Di Staso

How did you start your artistic career? What was the world of theatre and cinema for you?

Cirone e Di Staso: G: “I would like to start talking about my artistic career with Francesca, for me it is a new beginning. My career began very early, when I was in my mother’s womb, but I was lucky to meet many people who forced me to stay in Milan in the 1980s. I've taken a lot of steps and I've had the chance to meet Mike Bongiorno, Enrica Bonaccorti and many more. Here I was born as a character of Italy 1 with the group of “Drive In”.

I was considered the “boy of shop” that with Greggio and Beruschi I learned all the tricks of the craft until I get to the program “Gommapiuma” where I doubled the puppets and to the success with the imitations. Then I met Francesca.” F: ” I entered the entertainment world in 1997. Let's say that I started as a hostess of congressional officer (hostess of a famous hotel in Bari). Then hostess, do you know about those televised programs on Tele-market?! do live evenings as a valet etc.....

My first television appearance was with my character Jessica Viccio that the port on stage still, and it was in 2003-2004 on a local television (then Teleregione) in the broadcast “Expressive Court”. I started as an author, I always liked to be behind the scenes, although I couldn't stand because I bring a seventh (of course joke), I wrote texts for Gigi and other national actors.

Then the meeting with Lia Cellamare (I first met her in 1997, then she moved to Casamassima and we found each other), she proposed to audition for the workshop of “Zelig” (famous channel program 5 led by Claudio Bisio) I agreed to do so and we were taken; so this artistic couple between me Lia Cellamare was born; then, as you know very well, she moved to Rome.

Francesca you said that you started doing Cabaret with Lia Cellamare, in the laboratory of “Zelig” in 2015. Gigi, instead, you were launched in 1981 by Rita Pavone her husband Tedi Reno and you have done so many fictions. Among all the heterogeneous characters you have interpreted, what is what is left in your heart? What are the attributes that characterize it?

Cirone e Di Staso: G: “As for me I started by imitating the great actor of the part of Totò and I continue to imitate it still doing an advertising program. Totò, as you know, is the encyclopedia of the show and everyone has browsed the pages of this character because he taught everything that could be taught in the world of comedy.

Then I was lucky to have two godparents, a godmother like Rita Pavone, a godfather like Tedi Reno who gave me advice not to finish, they brought me up very well;

Moreover, as Mike Bongiorno also said to me (” Weilà, who is good that you are trying to be on the ground, you have to know that in life you never end up learning”), all these tips are defined wise and these advices I would like to convey to you, Mariateresa, and to all those young artists who want to pursue the artistic career and I always say that the times seem easy because there is so much television so there is everything, but it is too much consumption.

We see broadcasts like “Great Brother”, where there are also children who come from the theatre school that I have known, but exploited and are thrown from here and there; so the advice that I can give you always try to bring home a dish of pasta and beans ( ironically to study you want to do this job you like) and repeat the times are easy but not.

F: ” I was born with Jessica Viccio, as I told you, that she is an actress of a certain weight and a certain thickness, also because she is the queen of women in meat. I have to tell you that I started from a blog called “Cucina tu che a cibo ci io”, it helped me a lot because as I told you earlier I was a hostess of congresses and for health reasons I took weight: then I say? “What do I do? Do I go to depression or do I help myself with self-irony?”

The autoironia has worked and now I am a strafiga della Madonna and so, as I told you, the paladina of the woman in meat where people on the blog asks me advice (I weight tot as I have to do etc.), now I also carry it in the theater and also on stage. (G: “I am now her shoulder and she is also the comic part of our show that lasts an hour and is a miniature musical, so let’s call it so because we do everything cabaret, music and imitation we make sosia of Mina and Celentano and this show is not to be missed.

We move and say it’s a show to see.” This is my character I have always brought to my heart

Gigi what difference is between imitation and improvisation?

Cirone e Di Staso: G: “Sometimes imitation can become improvisation. I had an evening for example when a colleague failed, so they told me, “Elong stretch as long as you can”. Of course I can't do so many imitations of Adriano Celentano, over 15 pieces of his CD; so what I did came down to the audience and I improvised so that I heard the voices of others and at the same time I repeated their voices. So there was a moment of illicitness and fun by the public.

Improvisation well there must be strong foundations to improvise especially knowing where to go to parare each time, since it starts from a topic and however the comedian always knows how to bring a point where he decides. because it is not always just improvisation but it is something that is already prepared (F: “However improvisation is preparation. If you are not prepared, you cannot improvise”).

Francesca what is the difference between fiction and sit-com?

Cirone e Di Staso: F: “Well I think I’m brought right to sit coms, as far as fiction is concerned, Gigi is proposing. In the world of cinema I have had no experience as you see.... Gigi teaches, as you know well, you have to have a perfect diction.

I would have wanted to do some courses but being cabarettist rightly he tells me “do not do classes of diction otherwise you spoil your career, because you are well so natural so you are comedy”. (G:”Sometimes the theatre is this; or you learn art but stay as you are because she is comic and natural. The comedian immediately recognizes him because he has the cadence in the first place and then he has the line ready.

That's why you have these characteristics, so I didn't want to distort it as I am, that is, have a set voice or a perfect Italian pronunciation).

Do you feel comic actors or dramatic actors?

Cirone e Di Staso: G:” Then there is always a bit of drama in the comedian anyway. The comedian, in the end, is expressed as comic because it has the very basis of problems”. F: “As I told you, the character of Jessica was born with a problematic mania, so anyway the comedian is the classic character of the clown and therefore is a mask. I, in real life, have always been positive... always”.

In the Commedia d’arte, born with Terenzio and Plauto, the actor is the creator of the messincene and is sometimes in tune with the playwright. in theatre and cinema, is the relationship between playwright and actor always become solidarity or are there discord between the two parties?

Cirone e Di Staso: G: “Right disagreements that there are because they are ways to see in different forms. To me it happened, for example, when we turned “Gommapiuma” channel 5 political satire program, where I made some variations to the texts to make them more my, changes that the author liked, others do not accept certain variations, while the playwright has very precise rules and has a very precise writing and does not want that out of certain canons.

In fact, if we look at the directors of Neorealism, they have precise ideas, like Vittorio Gasman, and then come out of certain indispettive canons a little bit the director who is angry”.

F: “I’m actually a screenwriter author of the texts that I bring on stage; I have to tell you, I have taken some advice, I have also grown up and I have to thank my mentor Francesco Monteleone because I worked with him in TeleBari in a program of political satire of 2007 and taught me something in writing, more than anything else since I am more than another battutista, so among us created a perfect match that side of his magic.

To demonstrate that both the actor and the playwright can collaborate quietly together, however, you must find, as Gigi said, that predisposition to collaboration”.

The Pisan theatre, we all know it, has an important feature: it teaches the idea of humor. The poetics of humor supports the difference between person/personage-mask. According to Pirandello, the character is the one who plays the part dictated by society and who creates the likely. Your theatre (we call it ironically Distasian) is very close to the poetics of Pirandello's humor?

Cirone e Di Staso: G: ” Well in certain certain aspects, we can define ourselves “One, none and one hundred thousand (famous novel of Pirandello of 1926)” in our show and precisely because “One” is Francesca (the character), “Nessuno” (No one are so many faces that face and try to distinguish) and “Centomila” (are imitations during the evenings) and there are changes of scene. F: “There is much more than autobiographical show, so I am mask and not, I am very transparent in what I do and I think we are very good, you say why?

Because we get so well into the character that people sometimes hate Gigi because many times in the show they tease me, I don’t understand that it’s a simple part that plays in the show.” (G: ” Here I would like to become the “Fu Mattia Pascal”).

What are the models you have inspired to become great actors?

Cirone e Di Staso: G:” I have so many, I have taken a little from many people. My model was Enrico Montesano who I saw him as he moved on stage and my mentor was Gigi Proietti because I heard him not only in the dubbing, but also seen in the theatre. I understood the greatness of this actor, one who sings, who doubles, plays and makes comedy in short: extraordinary.

It was Gassman in some ways (because he produced Dante's texts from German texts), but Proietti defines it as a complete artist that goes beyond all this “. F:” In my case it is simple. I didn't expect to do this kind of job, as I told you before to make the writer yes, but to stay on a stage no.

I have to tell you that as a girl, it will seem absurd to tell you, I was watching for example the film “Holidays Procession”, film by Jerry Calà filmed in the tourist village Cala Corvino in Monopoli, and I saw, for the first time, a nice girl, fat girl was her: Francesca Antonaci in Gegia art who struck more for both sympathy, joy and sunnyness than for her physicality! Then the famous Sconsolata (in art Annamaria Barbera) where I really recognized myself.

I never wanted to do this because of Gigi, because when you have a sacred monster you really feel small because you say but where I go and when I started working with him and Lia Cellamare, slowly I grew up (G:” Francesca you don’t have to discourage yourself you are beautiful and above all stay as you are and like you at every age group”).

In addition to Gegia and Annamaria Barbera, I took a bit from Lia and Gigi’s teachings, but I don’t know if it is presumption or modesty, I don’t think there is a character like me because being, I repeat, an autobiographical character, I am myself and I am myself”.

What is Italian director you worked with and who would you like to thank that you still want to work with him?

Cirone e Di Staso: G:” Well any director, indeed he gave me something that remains. I have to thank Lorenzini, Beppe Recchia, Mario Bianchi who was the first I met, then as for the fictions there are so many directors, still still from September we worked with other directors and each one of these taught me something.

I do not hide that the director Alessandro Pondi, the director of the film “Who has seen me with Beppe Fiorello and the new conductor of Sanremo Pier Francesco Favino, where I made an audition did not take me but told me that I was not well for that part and then I asked advice also to him, but not only advice but also suggestions to understand those new magic that today there are other techniques to make a film.

I invite all the boys, even you Mariateresa (but I prefer you to be a journalist of the show and also the critic because you are very good with the questions), who want to join the cinema, theatre and show also in watching in the past, reviewing old clips, today Youtube gives you a great opportunity to see these movies, look carefully looking try to inspire you something is better than you can”.

F: ” In my case I can stand out for TV directors because cinema experiences I have never made. I can tell you about the great Vito Capuano, director of Telenorba, who has directed a program of which I have been part of “Good morning is seen from the dressing room”, fantastic director and I would like to work with him again and have just advice”.

Who do you want to thank for your artistic journey? What will your future projects be?

Cirone e Di Staso: F:” I start. I want to thank my mentor Francesco Monteleone, who believed in me from the television point of view and, who believed in me immediately and unpronata is undoubtedly Gigi. I thank Leo Zani of Telenorba who believed me in me after seeing me at the workshop of “Zelig” wanted me in his transmission “Good morning is seen from the dressing room” and he saw me at the lab of “Zelig” and said “I want you in my transmission” and my friend of the heart Lia Cellamare”.

G: “I would like to thank an infinity of people, but two people in particular who are up in the sky and both are called Franco one of these to whom I am tied is Franco Catulé and was manager of Mike Bongiorno and was my manger for many years, Franco brought me to America along with the Poohs, to Umberto Tozzi, I did nice things with him and above all it was he who inserted me in the world of channel 5;

Then Tony Toscano and I'm sorry to have lost a friendship with a colleague whose name I don't mention is top secret.” F: “We want to thank Gigi and I especially because he was the one who made it meet both artistically and personally Franco Meazza (G: “The second Franco I have accented you before”), that in the sit-com “Melenza” played the battery, that he launched Gigi and that he believed.

He also believed in me he launched me from the time I was hosting Gigi and for 19 years we have been together” F: “As a project for the future we are now shooting a video clip and especially our GF show and thank Mariateresa for this interview these questions are challenging and intelligent.” G: ” Mariateresa even if we do not see you on stage, but as a journalist go to swollen sails. Your questions are incalciating and really interesting. Wishes for everything.”