Eduardo De Filippo

"I absorbed eagerly and with pity, the lives of many people."

Eduardo De Filippo synthesized his experience as a playwright, actor and director in this way. Born in Naples in 1900, he made his first appearance at a very young age in the company of Eduardo Scarpetta, his biological father. In approximately 1910 he joined the company of Vincenzo Scarpetta, his father's legitimate son. In 1903 he founded with his siblings, Peppino and Titina, the Teatro umoristico, specializing in a vaudeville repertoire. In 1932, the leap: from the one-act piece to theater of prose with the Naples debut of "Chi e' cchiu' felice 'e me?". In 1944 he founded the Teatro di Eduardo, without Peppino, who devoted himself to revues and then to film. In 1954 he opened the Teatro San Ferdinando, restored at his expense, which for years had housed the "La Scarpettina" Company. He died in 1984.

Of Eduardo's works we remember "Natale in casa Cupiello" (1930), "Napoli milionaria!" (1945) and "Filumena Marturano" (1946), all adapted by him also for the cinema.

Eduardo, born as a dialectal playwright, crossed national borders. The Naples that he showed in his work was not the Naples of commonplaces, of mandolin and heart in hand, but a bitter Naples, a theater of vices and universal hypocrisies, staged with the misanthropy typical of comedy. The conflict between the individual and society, the indignation in the face of injustice, the rebellion against outdated laws, all gave life to his theatrical work.

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__________________________ - updated on 13 giugno 1999 -

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