On the centenary of Primo Levi’s birth, Andrea Argentieri draws his inspiration to play the part of writer Primo Levi, capturing his voice, his gestures, his poses, his tones, his speeches. In a one-to-one dialogue, the author bears a lucid and vivid witness of Nazi lagers. Always guided by the search for truth, which inspired all his works, he selects historical memories with the same no-filter-eye allowing him to explain the unspeakable from the apparently peaceful perspective of reason.
In the play, there are three places where the writer can be found, places connect to three different works by Levi; to three different questions, to be more precise: “If this is a man”, “The periodic system”, “The drowned and the saved”. The deepest intimate relation between Levi and the act of writing, the vital need for witness reality, the relation with his father and family, the Jewish origins; a life-long relation devoted to chemistry and literature, the dignity of work and the social role of literature, the public need for a novel having the same scientific neutral nature of a chemical reaction; the concept of judgement, the urging need to banish hate in favour of an analytical entomological curiosity.
Through the remote acting technique and an outbound approach, Andrea Argentieri draws the portrait of the author starting from the impulse of a question: can this witness still somehow be unpleasantly itching? Can this play communicate through the actor’s sensitivity, thought his attempt to let the writer’s original materials have an effect on him? Can the epiphany of a voice, of an embodied-soul sticking to the body of an actor who is much younger that his master, make him feeling the binding power and need for his witness?
Se questo è Levi is an actor’s portrait. It is an attempt to concretely experience the art of account, in a one-to-one dimension with the author.