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Journalism of Courage
When he comes onstage, he resembles the Roberto Benigni that Americans came to know in 1999, the one who hopscotched on the backs of the chairs at the Oscars to claim his prize for Life Is Beautiful. He runs in stage right, wearing the slightly goofy grin that shows up in most photographs and starts in with lightning-quick banter that spears politicians, the pope and whoever else might be in the news that day.
But as the evening proceeds, the familiar rascal becomes earnest student, kindly professor and, finally, tragic actor who sheds believable tears to the verse of Dante Alighieri, father of Italian literature.
His travelling show called 8216;Tutto Dante8217;, an unlikely hit featuring the 14th-century Inferno, has been filling up theaters and sports arenas throughout Italy, 8220;just like Bruce Springsteen8221;, as Benigni says in an interview.
Benigni explains: 8220;In Dante, there is mystery and poetry, it8217;s entertaining, and he shows us all the human passions8230; In Dante we find all the techniques of cinema8230;He invented the rapid movement, all the techniques of narrating a story, of set design, and film editing. He is so modern you jump off your seat 8212; special effects, he invented them!8217;8217;
The show segues smoothly toward Dante, through a sketch that illustrates a nearly lost tradition he picked up from his native small town in Tuscany, where locals compete in demonstrating their virtuosity in verse.
From there he sheds the comedian8217;s skin and begins his introduction to The Divine Comedy, with the line that every Italian knows by heart: 8220;Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita Midway in the journey of life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone.8221;
In some ways he would like to bring Dante to the United States because Dante is under appreciated and badly represented, he said: 8220;He is portrayed as old, Catholic, imperialist and medieval.8221; But when Americans do understand him, he said in typical Benigniesque hyperbole, 8220;they fall in love until death. It8217;s like seeing a cherry tree when it blossoms.8221;
Sarah Delaney LAT-WP
