By Antonio La Cava
There is a strange coincidence between reality and fiction: The Rose Tattoo, the famous play by Tennessee Williams, on stage at the National Theatre until 8th August, has as a central issue the overcoming of grief after a death, and for an odd case the cast was struck by the death of their own director Steven Pimlott, then replaced with Nicholas Hytner, after a week of rehearsals.
The story of The Rose Tattoo is set in the lively Sicilian-American community of New Orleans where a woman, Serafina delle Rose, has recently lost her husband Rosario, a banana truck driver involved in some rather shady business. Serafina, shut in her grief, for three years lives with her mourning, remembering the past years, becoming a slovenly recluse, letting herself gone, until when she finds a new love, the truck driver Alvaro Mangiacavallo.
To perform Serafina delle Rose is a great Zoë Wanamaker, known to have played the character of Madam Hooch in the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and famous in the UK for playing Susan Harper in the sitcom My Family.
Serafina idealises the image of her husband, telling he has noble origins, and also for that in her community everybody calls her the ‘Baronessa’ (Baroness).
After her husband dies, she invents a constant presence: “The memory of the rose in my heart is perfect” she says. Such is their union that a rose-shaped tattoo, like the one Rosario had, appeared on her breast at the moment of conception of their second child, with whom she is pregnant, but that she loses when she will know her husband is dead.
She counts the exact number of nights that they have spent together. “Each time is the first time with him”. Serafina swears that her heart will not belong to any other man and she wants her daughter to stay pure until marriage.
To keep vivid the memory of her marriage restrains every doubt about her husband’s fidelity. By clinging to her memories, Serafina lives in her world, “like a female oyster”, obstinate to keep every moment of her past life and annul her present life.
Three events move Serafina delle Rose from her mourning and force her to face up to reality: the rumours that her husband may have been unfaithful; her 15-year-old daughter, Rosa, falls for a young sailor man; her encounter with Alvaro, another Sicilian truck driver, played by Darrell D’Silva, whose body has an uncanny resemblance to that of her deceased hubby.
Another odd coincidence in The Rose Tattoo is that Wanamaker’s father, the American director and actor Sam Wanamaker, has been the first to introduce this play by Tennessee Williams in the UK.
Beyond some stereotyped images about the Sicilian-American community, in the performance some different aspects of the Italian culture come out.
The act in which some women go to Serafina's to comfort the widow is a typical attitude in some areas of the Italian southern regions as it is, for widows, wearing black clothes sometimes for the whole rest of their lives.
The same Serafina’s religiousness, mixed to superstition, shows like the aspect of religion is prevalent. “Give me a sign, Lady”, Serafina says continuously, speaking to the statue of the Virgin Lady.
The hashes of her husband are under the statue of the Madonna, in a carnal attitude that haunts the woman to the ashes of the dead spouse.
If in the first part of the performance the play is tragic, with a masterly Wanamaker’s interpretation, in the second act the drama becomes a comedy, as the desperation becomes hope, the unhappiness of a woman closed in her grief becomes passion and a new love: Alvaro Mangiacavallo enters Serafina’s life and changes it.
It is exhilarating when Serafina interrogates her daughter’s wooer about his religiousness, forcing him to swear on his knees, in front of the Virgin’s statue, not to damage her daughter’s virginity until the marriage. “Are you a Catholic?” Serafina asks “But you don’t look Catholic!”. Too, in this act, there is a typical Italian attitude of the past, when the wooers asked the assent to the girl’s parents to start a love story.
Wanamaker’s ability to perform the grief and the blind persistence to stay in the mourning, of a widow able to alternate tears to smiles, shows the inner fight of Serafina between the religious precepts and the desires of a woman.
The show, in English, is performed in some parts in Italian too, with an accent that strives to sound Italian.
Peculiar is the use of the ‘voi’ instead of the ‘tu’ (the Italian second plural person used instead of the second singular person) which recalls a typical way of talking of the Italian speakers from southern regions.
The stresses and the rhythm, when the Italian language is spoken, although they sound stereotyped and of course different from a southern dialect mixed to English, anyway make perfectly clear what bilingualism is in a community.
But beyond the life of immigrant community there is a puritan and brutal America, which even though in the performance is only mentioned, shows the attitude of isolation and racism that the Italians in the past suffered.
And maybe the limit of a stereotyped image of the Italians abroad, showed in the performance, is its strength, that mixing up the theme of grief with grotesque, celebrates the way by which from desperation hope may spring.
Copyright 2007 GIORGIOSTUDIO Ltd – All rights reserved
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