<i>Villa Rhabani</i> in Production: Three Interviews

What began as a pleasant dinner conversation on the Isle of Capri in August 2014 among Italian musicians, theater artists, and an expatriated American educator became the start of an arduous yet thrilling theatrical journey for Wilder scholar Dianna Pickens. Luck was on her side that evening, aligning with Wilder’s definition of luck as not mere chance but largely a recognition of opportunity and readiness (Niven 182). With the rising Latin moon came Pickens’s realization of opportunity. A conversation with a longtime friend, Francesco Canessa, about her discovery in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Wilder’s unfinished, unpublished, unproduced play, Villa Rhabani, resulted in his suggestion that she contact his son: a young theater and opera director, Riccardo Canessa, who was currently “in search of a project for the Naples Theater Festival” (Pickens, “Villa Rhabani: Wilder” 2). Riccardo Canessa was interested, and his request to read it resulted in Pickens’s subsequent translation of Villa Rhabani into Italian, which led to a production.Wilder’s handwritten, incomplete, and disorganized manuscript presented a substantial challenge for Pickens, what she has described as “a moral quandary.” She wondered “how much interpretation would be permitted in completing the play?” With Canessa’s help, Pickens addressed the “lack of coherence in the scattered, unpolished third act, and the author’s indication of a never-written fourth act.” They considered whether or not “the play should be left with an open ending,” and, if so, whether such an ending could “be made interesting to an audience” (Pickens, “Villa Rhabani: Capri” 307). With the tools of scholarly research, Pickens did a deep dive into Italian productions of Wilder’s plays, hoping to discover a way into presenting Villa Rhabani that would simultaneously honor the play and also satisfy her personal goal of “re-introduc[ing] Thornton Wilder to local Italian audiences,” who were mostly unfamiliar with the playwright’s work. As a result of her painstaking investigation of prior Italian productions—predominantly of Our Town—the idea of adding a Stage Manager to Wilder’s script emerged (Pickens, “Villa Rhabani: Capri” 308, 310). This theatrical device made it possible to share information about Wilder. It was decided that the actor playing the Stage Manager would also play a minor character in the production, Alviero the butler.Ultimately, Pickens’s hard work paid off. The play was accepted for two performances at the Naples Theatre Festival in 2015—“an international festival featuring theatrical, musical, and dance performances from all over the world” (Pickens, “Villa Rhabani: Wilder” 2). The next step in the process was to identify and engage a distinguished cast, and Pickens’s good luck continued. Director Canessa suggested securing the talents of his friend, Raina Kabaivanska, a well-known, much-beloved opera star, to play the Stage Manager and Alviero. According to Pickens, “Her participation was fundamental in shaping the adaptation of the play” (Pickens, “Villa Rhabani: Wilder” 2). It also boosted ticket sales. Once it became known that she would be appearing in a recently unearthed Thornton Wilde play set on Capri, both evenings of the run were sold out well in advance of the opening.In a letter to his family in 1920, a young Thornton Wilder, immersed in his Italian adventure, waxed eloquent about the play he was writing, already dreaming of the potential cast that might do it justice. Enumerating certain distinguished stage personalities of the day, he warned, “[N]o one short of Elsie Ferguson, Gareth Hughes, Haidée Wright and Arthur Byron need attempt to play it” (qtd. in Niven 184). For the Naples Theatre Festival debut, casting was particularly important, and once again, director Canessa’s reputation and connections proved advantageous. Ultimately, he was able to gather a distinguished and eager group of young and veteran professional actors to be the first interpreters of what Wilder described in a letter to his mother as “a long hymn of love, profane love, of course, most pagan” (qtd. in Niven 191). Pickens, on behalf of the Thornton Wilder Journal, asked two of the original cast members and the director of that inaugural production of Villa Rhabani if they were willing to be interviewed about the play and their experience performing it. Riccardo Canessa (director), actor Yuri Napoli (Dario Stiavelli), and actor Sergio Basile (Dr. Kemper) all graciously consented to answer interview questions submitted by the editors of the Thornton Wilder Journal.As is always the case with the insights of actors and directors following a theatrical event in which they were so closely involved, these interviews offer an intriguing insider’s view of Wilder’s early unfinished work, despite the fact that English is not the first language of any of these three artists. One can only imagine how interested Wilder himself would have been in their responses! Notice the similarities voiced by the artists as well as their contradictions, “for they are the abstract and brief chronicles” of a project lovingly begun by Dianna Pickens on behalf of Thornton Wilder and his legacy.Riccardo Canessa, a director and lighting designer, was born in Milan and lives and works in Naples. In 1997, he became the artistic director of Opera Nazionale Italiana, a program based in Rome and New York, dedicated to the organization of opera tours within the United States and Canada. To date, he has directed and designed the lighting for more than seventy different operas, in Italy, France, Spain, Austria, England, and the United States, and, recently, in China and South Korea. His next commitments include Turandot and Rigoletto at the Teatro Magnani in Fidenza, of which he has been a permanent director for fifteen years, and the baroque masterpiece La Disputa delle Stagioni by Domentico Scarlatti for the International Festival of Eighteenth-Century Neapolitan Music. Yuri Napoli is a distinguished actor and writer, recognized for his contributions to theater and film. Napoli has won the “BeWons Best Talent 2015” and the “Napoli Cultural Classic 2019” awards. His career has taken him to Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, and the United States. He began his theater studies in Naples at Teatro Elicantropo under Carlo Cerciello and continued in Rome at Beatrice Bracco’s academy and the Free Mistake Project with Francesca Viscardi Leonetti. He further honed his craft in New York with Susan Batson at Black Nexxus, training alongside Oscar winners like Juliette Binoche and Nicole Kidman. His theater career started in Naples, performing in major theaters. His debut as a playwright was with Il Vero Autentico Barone di Munchausen, directed by Mario Santella. Over ten years, he worked in over fifty theater productions. He has acted in various films, sharing the screen with renowned actors like Francesco Montanari and Maria Grazia Cucinotta. In 2019, he starred in La Mia Seconda Volta, directed by Alberto Gelpi. He is also the artistic director of the internationally recognized Gruppo Storico Romano, writing and directing historical plays performed in Italy and abroad. Napoli’s directorial projects include the historical drama Caracalla and the well-received Mors Tua Vita Mea. He directs the “Natale di Roma” celebration, which attracts over fifty thousand spectators annually and has received prestigious recognitions, including a medal from the president of Italy. Sergio Basile has been active in the Italian theater scene for over thirty years, playing leading and supporting roles in companies throughout Italy and abroad. His roles include Claudio in Hamlet, directed by Giorgio Albertazzi, and Makar Devushkin in Dostoevsky’s The Mysteries of Petersburg, directed by Vittorio Gassman. He also appeared in Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, directed by Franco Zeffirelli. In addition to his extensive theater work, he has appeared in several films and television series.

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