Storytellers Anne Hunter, Donald Smith and Simone Caffari held court with a Scots-Italian garland of stories, music and song in celebration of Italo Calvino’s centenary. Only one part of a storied career, Writer and journalist Italo Calvino, 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985, amassed and translated an amazing 200 folktales from their original local dialects. This work, commissioned by Giulio Einaudi in 1954, would take Calvino two years. In the end, he had an answer to Einaudi’s challenge: he had indeed found an Italian equivalent of the Brothers Grimm!
Smith, Hunter, and Caffari mark Calvino 100 – presumably before going out on tour with their debut album.
Wisely eschewing the task of relaying all 200 tales, Smith, Hunter and Caffari (presumably they will begin a folk band soon) selected only enough to fill an hour of song and yarn spinning. Smith, in fine fettle as ever, delighted in the absurdity of monarchs giving birth to apples, and the eucatastrophe of the indolent Samphire Starboard making good despite himself. Hunter waxed most lyrically upon the fates of a frog-ensorcelled princess, and the endless ingenuity of a farmer’s seventh daughter. Caffari, the show’s necessary Italian, held forth in his native tongue through canzone and storia, weaving emphatic words of love, the sea, and of an ingenious – if murderous youth – getting the better of cannibalistic witches.
theQR would like to see a little more investment in staging, particularly lighting for such cabaret-style shows. The performance talent box is ticked, but a little more attention to mood, and atmosphere would certainly pay dividends. The Netherbow Theatre is equipped to provide a wide variety of effects, so bring on some tracings of stage magic! This is a point I foresee returning to before the Festival is out.
The hour might also have benefited from just a little more exposition of Calvino and his place in the international literary pantheon. However, with such able, amiable and invested talents on stage, there was no lack of quality or variety on offer. If the tales tended towards the happier ending side of things, there was more than enough strangeness to balance the tone. This, plus plenty of chuckles made for a warm, and fascinating introduction to Calvino and the tales he so lovingly collected and translated.
