Filumena Marturano

"Filumena Marturano" is one of the most celebrated and best known plays of the Italian playwright and philosopher Eduardo De Filippo.

"Filumena Marturano" was initially written as a tribute to Eduardo's sister, Titina De Filippo, a famous Neapolitan theatrical actress, who took the title role in the first production in Naples in 1946. The play followed on from the success of "Napoli milionaria", which Eduardo had written and which had premiered the year before to general acclaim. The first night of the new play, proved a disappointment however, and received lukewarm notices from the Neapolitan theatre-going public. Titina decided to address this by following her own instincts and performing as she felt the role required. She was proved right. The play achieved great success, so great in fact that for many years afterwards Titina was called in public in Italy by her character's name, Filumena, rather than her own.

Thanks to an arrangement made by Carlo Trabucco, the editor of the daily Italian Christian Democrat newspaper "Il Popolo", an audience was arranged for the cast to meet Pope Pius XII in a private audience in the Vatican. At the audience, the Pope unexpectedly asked to hear one of the monologues, and Titina recited for him the prayer of Filumena to the Madonna of the Roses.

Plot

The curtain opens on Domenico Soriano, 50, a wealthy Neapolitan shop-keeper who is raging against Filumena, 48, a former prostitute. They lived together for 26 years as husband and wife and she has cheated him, pretending to be near to death, and convincing him to marry her in extremis. Domenico, however, would rather marry Diana, a young girl, who is already in the house pretending to be a nurse. Filumena reveals the real reason for the marriage to Domenico: she wants to create a family for her three children (Umberto, Michele and Riccardo) who have no idea of who their mother really is.

Domenico is not going to allow this and asks his lawyer, Nocella, to annul the marriage. Filumena speaks to the young men telling them that she is their mother.Filumena accepts the defeat of the annulment, but tells Domenico that one of the three children is actually his. All attempts to find out who his son is fails, and Domenico, after 10 months remarries Filumena accepting to be the father of all three.

In the play Filumena memorably tells Domenico that "Children are children, and they're all equal" ("I figli sono figli e sono tutti uguali").

Filumena in performance

Despite the strong connection between Titina De Filippo and the role in the mind of the Italian public, another actress, Regina Bianchi, was also able to achieve cult status as Filumena in subsequent years.

Abroad, Joan Plowright took the role in 1977 in London, with her husband Laurence Olivier directing. Following excellent reviews she played the part again, this time on Broadway in a production directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Most recently in London, the play was performed at the Piccadilly Theatre, opening on 30 September 1998 and running until February 27 1999. It was directed by Peter Hall with Dame Judi Dench in the title role. Michael Pennington played Domenico.

Filumena has also appeared on the silver screen. In 1950 Eduardo De Filippo directed the film of the play in which he starred as Domenico alongside his sister Titina. He also made a tv version in 1962, in which Regina Bianchi played the title role. Another screen version was directed by Vittorio De Sica and it was re-named "Matrimonio all'italiana" ("Marriage Italian-Style"), and starred Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

External links

* [http://w3.uniroma1.it/cta/eduardo/teatro/eduardoscrive.html The Theatre of Eduardo De Filippo]