Italy and Lebanon united by theatre, school, culture. And by the genius of Luigi Pirandello.
Pirandello staged in Beirut by Lebanese students
Categories: Language and education
As part of the XX Week of the Italian Language in the World, the Monot Theatre in Beirut hosted, on 12 December, the show ‘Il popolo libanese ha fischiato‘ (The Lebanese people whistled), organised in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Lebanon and the Municipal Authority of Sarba Nabatieh.
The show, winner of the First Prize in the International Competition ‘Uno, nessuno e centomila’ (One, No One and One Hundred Thousand) 2020 in Agrigento, is a free transposition of the novel by Luigi Pirandello ‘The train whistled’ and was interpreted entirely in Italian by a group of lower secondary students who study Italian thanks to an agreement between the Lebanese municipal authority and the Italian Cultural Institute of Beirut. It was directed by Ali Bitar and supervised by the Italian teacher Mona Rizk.
The very young actors, re-reading Pirandello and led by the teacher, represented the social and economic hardship of their country. The whistle of the train symbolises the reawakening of the people, who at a certain point become aware of their atrocious existence and unexpectedly rebel when they hear the news of the probable death of their country, Lebanon.
