I often use the same mechanism today to get shows underway, that is, I invent situations or pretexts which permit me to chat to the audience while the lights are still on in the auditorium. These can be quite elementary devices, such as: ‘You’re late. We were getting worried, take a seat. That lady there … yes, you … I saw you smoking furtively … that’s right, she’s crouching down under her own armpits … and she’s puffing like mad … she’s going to go up in flames!’ I invent other pretexts, speaking out loud to the wings, to the stage-hands, electricians or sound engineers. ‘Could you tone down that spot light. That echo’s coming back again,’ then I turn to the audience, ‘Don’t you think there’s a kind of boom in my voice … a ricochet?’ Everything can be used to smash down the fourth wall, anything to get over the cliché of ‘let’s see if you can make me laugh … let’s just see if you’re all you’re cracked up to be’.
I also start off with a comment on something in the news that everybody will be familiar with. I often launch straight in: ‘Seen today’s papers? According to the headlines…’ The intention is to disorientate the audience who have turned up expecting to see a play or listen to a story, maybe one taken from the ancient Greek narrators. Instead I wrong-foot them and start babbling about a recent, contemporary event: ‘Just before I came on, I heard on the television that the sea water in the Adriatic is so pure that it’s drinkable … all that gunge is not actually poisonous … research in Japan has shown that it’s full of nutrients, so they have been feeding it to their turkeys, who are very keen on it. A German scientist has found it’s a wonderful remedy for diseases of the skin … better than mud baths. In Riccione, they’ve set up a recuperation centre with baths filled with the gunge. The Germans are flocking in.’
* * *
But let us get back to Lake Maggiore. Performers could not have failed to include a place like the village of the mezarat, with its intense nightlife, in their schedules, and every week there was a visit from a different touring company. There was a theatre in Porto Valtravaglia, and another three in nearby towns (Caldé, Muceno and Musadino). In summer, acrobats and puppet shows also came to town.
From time to time I put on shows of my own for my schoolmates. I repeated the stories told by Magnan, Braces and Dighelnò, with some variations or adaptations of my own. Almost without being aware of it, I was acquiring a command of the trade and building up a small but dedicated following. Having people to listen and come along when you perform is the first and essential condition. If the person performing does not savour the effervescence which spectators bring, or that involvement with other people produced by shared laughter, there is no point in him even thinking of becoming an actor. Spectators suggest to you rhythms, timing and harmonies; they make clear to you the lines to cut, or that it is useless persevering with a particular situation.
The audience has always, at every stage, been my litmus test. If you are capable of listening to them, the stalls can direct you as well as any great maestro could, but no good will come from allowing yourself to be flattered or carried away, for the audience can then become like a wild horse out to unsaddle you.
Personally, I have never attended any school or academy, except for painting … but I have had many masters, some in spite of themselves. I firmly believe that the problem is not so much accepting teaching, as assimilating the trade from masters. It is by ‘cohabiting’ with the master that the pupil ‘grasps’: he does not ‘learn’, but ‘thieves’ the trade.
How does one teach the actor’s art?
As in every profession, the master, if you follow him with great attention, will reveal his secrets, and if you succeed in making them yours, well and good … otherwise, there’s nothing to be done. I certainly have thieved shamelessly, in the first place from the story-tellers on the lake, who imparted their lessons with a lightness of touch and without appearing to do so. The mezarat fable-tellers always taught me to be patient and open with beginners.
And so I today teach my pupils in the style of a conjurer who shows every time how his tricks are done, including the difference between gesturing and gesticulating. Gesticulating means movement without control, at random. The art of the gesture, on the contrary, implies great control of your own gestures, total awareness of the movement of each limb, from hands to chest, to feet, all with great economy and harmony.
I did not find it easy to acquire agility and speed of reflex on stage. I have had as masters in mime such figures as Jacques Lecoq and Etienne Decroux, but I have to admit that I came to these masters with invaluable previous training thanks to the numerous punch-ups in which I was often involved with boys of my own age at the lakeside. Boxing matches, brawls, kickings and knees to the groin were the order of the day in the Valtravaglia.
I came from a quiet town where displays of strength and aggression were very rare, but when I got to Porto I found myself battered about by those uncouth ruffians. Being shy and completely without any aggressive inclination, I invariably ended up on the ground, covered in bruises.
‘When are you going to stop letting yourself be beaten about like a mattress?’ Knocked black and blue by all and sundry, especially by Manassa and Mangina, I found myself, to make matters worse, mocked and reproached by my father. ‘Learn to stick up for yourself! Do you want me coming along to protect you, as though you were some little girl with a runny nose? Get off your backside and learn how to dodge blows, to block punches and look after yourself.’ ‘And who’s going to teach me?’ ‘If you go to Luino, there’s a boxing school.’
I went along. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I want to train!’ When I took off my coat and stood there all puny and lanky, the trainer burst out laughing uproariously. He nearly wet himself. ‘Come and see the next boxing champion! Away you go and present yourself to the fencing class. Maybe they’ll take you on. It might help make you a bit more agile … and learn at least how to get out of the way of punches.’
But alas! the rapier and sword-fencing classes were full.
They took me on for the sabre course, mainly I think to make up the numbers. It was not a very successful course, indeed there were only four people on it. The sabre master was of Sicilian origin, and would not hear of us using ‘irons’ in the first months; nothing but bare hands. ‘Duelling is an affair requiring cut and thrust by the hand, the arm, the chest, the hips and legs, and above all the brain. The sword will be the extension of the hand. You must learn all the positions by heart so that you can execute them with your eyes shut.’
After a couple of months of that discipline, like a gun-slinger exiting from a saloon, I presented myself at the quayside, the invariable arena for encounters, and there I had my first live match with Manassa. He squared up in the boxer’s ‘classical upright position’ while I came forward in the pose of the swordsman: left arm behind back, chest out, right arm outstretched, hand with fingers straight, tightly together and rigid as a blade. Lunge … parry … feint … straight thrust … whack! A blow to Manassa’s face, causing him to wrinkle his nose in disbelief. ‘For Christ’s sake! That’s not fair! What kind of boxing is that?’
A crowd of boys and one or two older fishermen had gathered round the two fighters. Manassa returned to the fray, throwing a couple of rapid punches, but with such fury that he knocked himself off-balance. I kept my poise, like a skilled swordsman. I moved back with swift steps without letting my outstretched arm fall, waving it about at any attack from Manassa. Swerve … feint … sideways parry … draw back … lunge … whack! One more blow to the boxer’s body … further delivery of downward stroke … Manassa on the ground, nose, forehead and cheek bones bright red. ‘Oh no, bloody hell! This is piss-awful boxing,’ he snorted. ‘I’ve had it up to here … it’s not fair!’