I hope it does him justice I think it provides at least a bit of context for his work and its importance. I have just written an appreciation of this remarkable playwright, critic, and theater teacher, which is published in the Indie Theater Companion on and also in some of the Community Media newspapers in Manhattan. So why is this production a bit more special than most?īecause it marks Fratti’s 50th (!) year on the American stage.Īt 85, Fratti remains as prolific and vital an artist as ever. This week saw the NYC premiere of two short plays by Mario Fratti at Theater for the New City: Three Sisters and a Priest and Suicide Club are being presented there on a double bill. She will always be my first choice when I cast new plays. She was a sensitive, sweet lesbian in my play “Dina and Alba”. Giulia Bisinella was very spiritual, very convincing as Emma. The director Stephan Morrow chose the other actors. I chose Mark Ethan Toporek and Giulia Bisinella, the protagonists. I saw last week “The Vatican Knows…” Where did you find such good actors? “Do we keep the scene or the song?” The answer was obvious. Maury liked it, but he surprised me the next day with the song “Be Italian”. I wrote a funny, amusing scene, where Saraghina explains love and sex to eager young children. No, it’s Maury Yeston’s, but I tell young playwrights who want to be composers how collaboration works. Is the song “Be Italian” yours? It’s typical Fratti. No mature man should be a ridiculous seducer. The scene and song when nine-years-old Fellini is accusing forty-years-old Fellini to have the brain and illusions of a kid. They ignored my idea of using Venice and the film Casanova. Please give them permission to bring it to Broadway.”
She wrote a letter to Fellini saying “Fratti and Yeston have written a masterpiece. My friend Katherine Hepburn was at the opening and loved it. We created the perfect structure you see now. We won the O’Neill workshop award in Connecticut and the Richard Rodgers’ award in New York.
I insisted in using my idea of Fellini going to Venice to shoot a film. We were rejected many times because Yeston insisted we should follow the outline of the film 8 ½. Ed Kleban (Chorus Line) saw it and introduced me to the composer Maury Yeston, suggesting a musical. I wrote “Six Passionate Women”, on Federico Fellini’s life. How did you start the idea of the musical “Nine”? When I was an altar boy I saw pedophilia in my church. A girlfriend of mine told me that her son had committed suicide. Especially after Pope Jean-Paul II said publicly that Heaven and Hell don’t exist. Her three daughters were furious and sued the church. My mother’s friend gave her inheritance, many buildings, to the church. What about “Three Sisters and a Priest”, “Suicide Club”, and “The Vatican Knows…”? Reality? Autobiography? We can see that you used your personal life in “Nine”. Williams always told me that the best plays are based on reality and autobiography. I’ve seen and admired your adaptation of the musical “Nine” and, lately, three new plays of yours. Dennis Parlato, as the film maker, heads a cast of eight that is peppered with Broadway vets.Īn interview of Mario Fratti by Sandra Hochman, discussing Mario’s Plays
Theater for the New City will present the piece October 9 to 26, directed by Stephan Morrow. It combines a serious disquisition on the creative mind with recurring themes of Fratti’s plays: betrayal, jealousy and sexual politics. Thus unfolds “Six Passionate Women” by Mario Fratti, a play inspired by the playwright’s personal acquaintance with Fellini, whom he covered closely as a journalist in the late 1950s.
So they exact revenge by making a movie of Nino’s life and fantasies, Candid Camera-Style. Rallied by a wealthy feminist American widow, they decide that to be a muse is to be exploited. But his sexual partners, all artists in their own right, are not satisfied. Nino is sexually impotent until he gets a good idea, and then he’s hellfire. So he goes to bed with a multitude of women, seeking ideas and stimulation, feeding on them both humanly and artistically. Every new work is, for him, an artistic crisis. NEW YORK - Nino, an Italian film maker with a strong resemblance to Federico Fellini, is in an artistic crisis.