Free Sicilian Tragedee by Ottavio Cappellani Page A

And now I’m compelled to say goodbye.”
    Betty taps the off button and tosses the cordless on the sofa.
    Pirrotta struggles to his feet, stares at the vodka, downs it in a gulp, straightens his dressing gown, and walks off without saying a word.
    Compelled?

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    An Immense Ham Hock Lies on Cagnotto’s Plate
    An immense ham hock lies on Cagnotto’s plate. (Apparently his stomach is in order again.) Their two hands, joined at the table, are lit up in the flickering candlelight. Bobo has ordered a salad of fennel and arugula.
    “I have nothing to give you but myself, Bobo.”
    Bobo withdraws his hand and scratches his neck.
    “Myself. The heart of me, know what I mean?”
    Bobo doesn’t understand.
    “Precisely!” says Cagnotto as if Bobo had replied. “I want to tell you the truth, Bobo. I don’t have a penny. I was there trying to work up an idea for a new theater season and you came along. And I realized that I was prostituting myself.”
    Cagnotto smiles proudly. “I was once again prostituting myself and my art, and for what? For the hypocritical acclaim of the public whose adoration lasts only as long as the next round of applause.”
    “Don’t talk like that.”

    “I will,” says Cagnotto with determination, seeking Bobo’s hand with his own.
    “No, don’t.”
    “Yes, I will! You made me understand. You … I’m, uh … grateful.”
    Bobo puts his hands in his lap.
    “Don’t be shy.”
    “No, it’s just that …” Bobo looks around.
    They’re in the restaurant attached to the Stage Space, a performance complex tucked into an old brick factory that has been rehabbed thanks to European Union funds for cooperatives. Exposed volcanic stone, plain cement floors. The air-conditioning is turned down to minus zero and the room is freezing. That’s why nobody goes to the restaurant attached to the Stage Space. But Cagnotto had wanted a quiet place to talk and in the summer the outdoor restaurants are wild. And they say we’re in the middle of an economic crisis?
    The woman manager of the Stage Space restaurant is German, the ham hocks are a German specialty, and she says that if she doesn’t keep the air-conditioning up to the max her clients won’t want to eat ham hocks in the summer.
    “I’m going to give back to Shakespeare that which is Shakespeare’s, Bobo.”
    “How’s that?”
    “You know Pasolini, De Sica, neorealism?”
    Bobo is silent.
    “They used street actors, like Shakespeare. Simplicity is their essence; the lack of professionalism renders the artist’s message cleanly. Without actorial mediation, which is motivated, let’s be frank, by the vanity of the protagonists.”
    “Huh?”
    Cagnotto smiles, spearing his ham hock. “But Pasolini and De Sica were film artists, get it, Bobo? Films. In the movies, if a nonprofessional
actor flubs his lines, gets an expression wrong, or is unable to convey an emotion, what do you do?”
    Bobo doesn’t know.
    “Reshoot the take!” Cagnotto chews with gusto. “You follow me?”
    Bobo looks at Cagnotto. He looks at his salad. He nods with his head bowed.
    “But me, what do I do? I don’t do films. ” Cagnotto pronounces the word films with a certain distaste. “So I said to myself, who are the street actors of the theater?”
    Bobo looks at Cagnotto.
    “Who are they?”
    Bobo looks at Cagnotto as he slices off another piece of ham hock. “Don’t know. Jugglers?”
    “Huh?”
    “Those guys on crutches?”
    Cagnotto looks up, interested. Jugglers? Crutches?
    “I don’t know. The real tall ones.”
    “Ah, stilts!”
    “You want to do something with stilts?”
    Cagnotto smiles. “No, no, the street actors of the theater are dialect theater actors. They are the ones who can speak to the public’s heart without any”—Cagnotto takes an abundant gulp of wine—“superstructure.”
    Bobo looks at Cagnotto.
    Cagnotto nods. “Bringing Shakespearean theater back to its origins.”
    Cagnotto looks Bobo in the eyes.