Review: In Scena! Italian Theater Festival's “MUBARAK’S NIECE (LA NIPOTE DI MUBARAK)”
“Marco Vergani brings an impassioned, mesmerizing full-body physicality to Valentina Diana’s psychosomatic monologue”
Ushered into the unassuming, sterile white gallery space of 36th Street’s TheaterLab, an audience of twenty or so takes their folding chair seats. The air is abuzz with Italian and English pre-show smalltalk. While waiting to see how many people can fit in the coldly claustrophobic, if not borderline Severance-bare room, murmurs fluctuate as eyes fall on a silent, fully-veiled figure sitting perched in the corner. Watching.
They remove their veiling, and thus we begin. It is not a woman as one might suspect, but rather a wiry, spirited Marco Vergani, renowned Italian actor and psychoanalyst bringing an impassioned, mesmerizing full-body physicality to Valentina Diana’s psychosomatic monologue “Mubarak’s Niece (La Nipote Di Mubarak).” The play rounds out a trilogy of monologues that have played as part of the past three In Scena! Italian Theater Festivals in New York.
The monologue follows an ordinary person who works as a radio host, feeling aimlessly “invisible to the world,” who forms an unlikely bond with Abdul, an Egyptian kebab shop owner whose congeniality masks devastating hardships spurred by the Tahrir Square Revolution happening at home. Diana’s text begins and ends with a refrain bemoaning the impossibility to love all humankind, citing the consumption of suffering via constant news cycles as creating such an impersonal distance that we become like ants, aware and sympathetic yet far removed from each other. Vergani’s character battles and toys with this all-too poignant idea; as a radio host, he brings levity to trivial monologues on the airwaves, yet as a customer, he trades entertaining stories for highly sought-after in-person connection. Trouble arises when a seemingly friendly conversation starter gives way to a chasm of difference in living versus passively consuming war-time news updates, ultimately challenging the radio host to become the listener by the end in an arc of learning empathy and understanding outside himself. The play embodies illuminating food for thought around geographical privilege, cultural barriers, and refugee assimilation that rings true to today.
Directed by Vinicio Marchioni, Vergani restlessly paces the room as he ravenously unfurls his story, a vulture circling and honing in on finding the truth. The monologue is peppered with realism, with real amnesty statistics and bloody news clippings transforming mere narrating rambles into revelations. We watch him as he’s processing, rifling through memory like a crumpled lunch sack, searching for companionship and meaning in an otherwise unfulfilling daily routine and understanding. Vergani’s physicality brings momentum and pause at appropriate moments, crescendoing and eviscerating alongside the serrated subject of the text as his friendship and worldview are challenged. The intimate performance space ensures that his performance resonates with every audience member, creating a compelling sixty-minute tour-de-force of acting and writing.
“Mubarak’s Niece” is a poignant addition to this year’s In Scena Festival, a much needed reminder on Western consumption and compassion around the horrors of far away war. With themes of observance and the role it plays in fostering or distancing human connection, Diana’s monologue is ultimately an exaltation of storytelling as vital currency and connection in troubling times. By opening up and sharing personal stories, beyond mere sound bites of our lives and “good how are you’s,” perhaps we can learn to love and understand each other, if we would only tune in.
Production credits
“MUBARAK’S NIECE (La nipote di Mubarak)”
Written by Valentina Diana
Directed by Vinicio Marchioni
Performed by Marco Vergani
Presented by Anton
English translation is provided by Conner Drennan
English surtitles are provided for In Scena! Italian Theater
Festival NY by Donatella Codonesu
Performed in Italian with English supertitles. Performances ran May 4, 2023 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU, and May 9 at TheaterLab in NYC. The performance runs approximately 1 hour, no intermission. For more information visit https://www.inscenany.com/
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