Nero, two thousand years of slanders

"Nero, two thousand years of slanders" is the title of a show written and performed by Edward Sylos Labini with Angelo Crespi.
After the success of the pièce dedicated to Gabriele d'Annunzio, the actor is back on stage interpreting the emperor "incendiary" Nero. The show, brainchild of Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, is loosely based on the essay by Massimo Fini "Nero - Two thousand years of slanders."

"No historical personality has never suffered such a bad reputation as Nero. Some Christian authors believed that he was the Antichrist. For sure this Emperor - guitarist, singer, poet, actor, writer, interested in science and technology - was unique in the history of the Roman Empire. The economic and intellectuals elites of his time did not understand him, or, on the contrary, they understood him too well and became for this reason his fierce opponents, forcing him to suicide. " (Massimo Fini, Nero - Two thousand years of slanders)
In front of Rome burned by a fire, the responsibility of which has unjustly attributed to Nero, the show will try to reveal who really this controversial emperor was, answering to some still unresolved questions. Was Nero that crazy megalomaniac precursor and forerunner of the modern show-politic?
Whence did the existential illness that drove him to be excellent at all come? Who did he wanted to be appreciated by when he sang or recited greek verses?
What was behind the advice of his tutor Seneca, or behind the obsessive presence of his mother Agrippina? The scene befins among the marbles of the Domus Aurea, where Nero, tormented by the ghost of his mother, re-experience the most important people of his life.
A storm of feelings, passions, intrigues, fears and tragic reflections; from the absorbing love for the beautiful and ambitious Poppea to the hallucination of the matricide and to the disagreements with the patrician and politic class, that was first adoring and compliant and then became bloody protagonist of a coup.
A captivating contrast between a public and a private environment.
The first is the one of the court of Nero, animated by parties, receptions and chaotic music managed by a frantic mime-DJ and a chorus of young artists and musicians.
The other is the one where conspiracies are made in the darkness by senators concerned about their fate and that of the empire, and where unspeakable secrets are hidden under the sheets. Political intrigues of the past that seem to retrace modern and current events.

Dramaturgy Angelo Crespi
and Sebastian Tringali Dajana Roncione
Giancarlo Conde Gualtiero Scola Paul Vallery
and with the participation of Fiorella Rubino
and with the actors of the Foundry of the Arts
sets and costumes Marta Crisolini Malatesta
lighting design by Peter Sperduti
original music by Paul Vallery

characters and performers
Nero Edoardo Sylos Labini
Seneca Sebastiano Tringali
Poppea Dajana Roncione
Fenio Rufo Giancarlo Conde
Otho Gualtiero Scola
Agrippina Fiorella Rubino
DJ and mime Paul Vallery
Court of Arts Foundry

The show lasts 2 hours plus the interval