My name is Armando Adolgiso and I was born in Naples.
I know: it's a bad way to begin this tale but every biography is a Museum of Errors.
In any case, this is what happened.
After a reasonable period of childhood and adolescence, I began working as vice-director for Ernesto Grassi, at the "Teatro Stabile" in my home town.
When I was pretty young I made my debut in theatre direction with "The Lesson" by Ionesco.
The critic Mario Stefanile - I owe him a lot - claimed that I was more than a promise for italian thatre: he was wrong.
I staged texts mainly belonging to european avant-garde, partecipating in shows and festivals: TeatroGiovani, Gin & Menta, Nuova Scena Milano, XVI Biennale di São Paulo, Asti Teatro, Estate Romana, Festival delle Colline.
Some of these shows were favourably judged; others less so; in some cases, they were definitely slated.
Among my earlier trials, I think that the best one was "Guardiano della tomba" ("The Warden of the Tomb"). I agree with you: the title is not so seductive but the author is Kafka. So, deal with him. In that occasion Vittorio Mezzogiorno had his first main role; he formerly had his debut with me, in a recital of poems and prose.
I'd like to set again that Kafka, and I might just get my way.
You should be worried!
One of my theatre texts had also a good success. Its title is "Il Campionato che viene tra poco passerà" ("The Coming Football Championship Will Soon Be Over") and it was performed ten times in the carriages of the little train that climbs from Turin to Superga: an excursion especially organized for the show.
Its radio arrangement was broadcasted more than once by Radio Tre (the Third Channel of Italian Public Radio).
In addition, I've put on several multimedial performances: Rome (the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Exhibition Hall), Pavia, Asti, Reggio E milia, Ferrara, Munich, Reims, where whole districts were involved in a special event that I called azione mercuriale ("Mercurial Action").
Why did I call it that? That’s my own business.
Some titles: "L'attore è un cane", "Succo di pera", "L'opera tace e volge la cavità verso l'interno" (with Vittorio Gelmetti"), "Fisso chi legge", "Al loop al loop", "Antingonautopsia", "Legami pericolosi: analisi su quattro colle", “I nodi sul Po: Laing sull’acqua e suoni subacquei” ("The Actor is a Dog", "Pear Juice", "The Work Stops Speaking and Turns Its Cavity Inward", "Fixed the Reader", "Loop! Loop!", "Antingonautipsy", "Dangerous Relationships; Analysis of Four Glues", "The Knots on the Po: Laing on the Water and Submerged Sounds").
The one that made the greatest stir was "Amore, carogna, esci dalla fogna" ("Love, Sod: Come out of the Sewer"): three days of underground speech through twelve drains of Rome. Renato Nicolini allowed me to realize it.
A few people even plagiarized it...Imagine that! Who would ever say it!
Since Iwas a child, I collaborated with the RAI (Italian Radio and Television): as an author of texts and a director. I went to work on my skateboard.
With Enzo Lamioni, I was the first director of Hit Parade, in those times runned by Lelio Luttazzi. Some years later, they tried to revive the program but they failed, and a clever managing director vainly did his utmost to find the old theme tune of that radio program. He finally bought it from a collector... great idiot! I had a recording of the tune: All he had to do was call me!
For the television I realized many sets of "Trasmissioni Integrative Scolastiche" ("Integrative School Programmes") produced by the Istituto Luce, as well as reports for cultural and scientific segments: "L'Approdo" ("The Landing"), "Teleset", "Tuttolibri" ("All Books"), "Scienza Futura" ("Future Science") and so many others that it is impossible to remember their titles.
But I perfectly remember that they all were extremely boring, following the old recipe for "culture as boredom".
Acquit me: it was not my fault. The chief editors of that (but also of the present ) time want these cultural programmes made in such way (although they declare the opposite): and if you don't realize the tapes as they order, you can forget about any more contracts.
It was a bad day, for the RAI, when I was engaged on the permanent staff as a director at the radio.
I worked there (or so they say) till 1992, when I left the radiotelevision public corporation... what do you say?... Yes, voluntarily, don't make wisecracks... I left the company, but I also continued to collaborate with them.
Which are my most recent radio things? "Missione nell'Impero dei Segni" ("Mission in the Empire of the Signs"), "Il Maestro e Madeleine", "Il Maestro e Mortillaro" (in both the circumstances, the Maestro was the implacable Guido Zaccagnini: buy my book "Film senza Film" ["Film without Film"] and you'll learn a lot of nice things about that ugly face!), "Trame dietro le trame" ("Plots behind Plots"), "Il Sorriso della Clessidra" ("The Smile of the Hour-glass"): in short, a lot of stuff...
My name is there, as the director of stories, radio writings and dramatic plays by Italian and foreign authors: from Brecht to Buzzati, from Campanile to Carver, from Cecov to Conrad, from Malerba to Mann, from Maraini to Moravia, from Pavese to Pontiggia... I playd havoc with them!
For the Corporation I also was concerned with new sound dramaturgy and, using advanced technologies with Italian and foreign phonologic studios, I realized programmes that were invited by international shows, such as: London, Institute for Contemporary Art; Paris, XII Biennale; New York, AudioArt. Some of these works are kept by Discoteca di Stato (National Record Library): You shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that this Company is now the victim of an identity crisis.
There were a few things that I enjoyed doing, popular programmes like "I pensieri di King Kong" ("King Kong's Thoughts"), and then "Fonosfera" and "Audiobox", conceived and directed by Pinotto Fava and, more recently, by Pino Saulo.
But it's quite possible that some chief executives weren’t amused at all: these guys, being absolutely stupid, removed those spaces from the scheduling. This happened much time after I went away to do damages somewhere else and so they didn't take anything from me, but they did from the audience; make way for boredom and fripperies: otherwise, maybe it’s not real culture?
Let's come back to me: it's better, isn't it?
Ruthless as I am, I published articles concerning literary and theatrical matters in daily newspapers ("Il Mattino", "Il Messaggero", "L'Informazione") and magazines ("Fare Musica", "Altri Termini", "Il Cavallo di Troia").
Cruel as I am, I wrote three books: "Epistolario" ("Epistolary"), "Il resto è silenzio"! ("The Rest is Silence"), "Film senza Film" ("Film without Film": first edition, 1986, second edition, 2000). Three anthologies are afflicted by excerpts of my books: "Letteratura degli anni '80" ("Literature of 80's", edited by Filippo Bettini, Mario Lunetta, Francesco Muzzioli; 1985), "Coscienza & Evanescenza" ("Consciousness and Vanishing", the guilty one is Franco Cavallo, 1986) and "La Micronarrazione" ("Micronarration", offenders: Carlo Maria Conti and Lamberto Pignotti; 1988).
I built objects that were exhibited in Italy and abroad and that I call arredamento ludico (play furnishing).
Why do I call them that way? That’s my own business.
The most recent ot these objects is in London, in the collection of Young, Lively and Divine Irene Amore ( a woman who you’ll be hearing about): its title is "Prostitute Postcard", mm. 297x210, paper, metal, latex and Aristotelian stuff.
In 1999 and the summer of 2000, an audience that was already guilty of being on holidays was subjected to my "Bel colpo, Callaghan" ("Fine shot, Callaghan!"), a comic thriller that the theatre company "La Mosca al Naso" included in its tournée's repertoire.
In June 2000, Pendragon Editions published an essay by Billi Bilancioni, entitled "Spirito fantastico e Architettura moderna" ("Imaginative Spirit and Modern Architecture"); Billi, during one of his not rare moments of magnanimity, dedicated the essay to me.
His publisher will never forgive him. My presence, in point of fact, is the only sour note in a marvellous book.
During the summer of 2001, the company "La Mosca al Naso", devilishly persisting, staged at seaside, mountain and thermal resorts a new stage theatre adventure of my detective Callaghan, set this time "In un nido di vipere" ("In a Snakes' Nest"): once again, the text as bitter as a lemon and torrid as the season’s weather required.
On the contrary, Summer 2002 was rainy. Among several floods, and thus with a lot of cancelled performances, Compagnia Vannini staged my soliloquy "Forza Terra! ("Come on, Earth!").
In November of the same year, twenty years after the release of the first serigraphic file of the collection "Il Trisegno" - conceived by William Xerra and published by "Tam Tam" of Adriano Spatola - at the Laboratorio delle Arti in Piacenza they exhibited my works that had appeared in that first file.
There were calm seas and happy journies during the summer months of 2003 for "Vacanze da brivido" ("Shivering Holidays"): a show based on my texts that was bravely proposed by recidivous Compagnia Vannini, heedless of the danger.
January 2004: the book "Idee" ("Ideas") by Fabrizio Bellavista and Fabio Colacchio is published: creativity through the words of 116 advertising experts, among which my name - and I do boast - appears together with: Pasquale Barbella, Klaus Davi, Edward de Bono, Massimo De Nardo, Michele Gottsche, Emanuele Pirella, Gavino Sanna, Annamaria Testa.
Publisher: Finedit Italia; for information: www.advertiser.it
March 2004: in my unusual capacity of poet, I tried to obstruct the success of the anthology "Io sono il titolo: autoritratti in versi di poeti contemporanei" ("I am the Title: Verse-Self-Portraits of Contemporary Poets"), by appearing in those pages. Nothing to do: the other 79 authors there included are really good and therefore success smiled to poet Sergio Zuccaro, conceiver and editor of the book.
In May is published "Odradek 2004: almanacco di scritture antagoniste" ("Odradek 2004: Almanac of Opposing Writings"), due to the writers Mario Lunetta, Francesco Muzzioli, Sandro Sproccati, who, liberally daring any prudence, included my name in the issue.
This summer, the actress Gloria Satriani, during her summer tour with the one-woman-show "Gloria all'estate" ("Glory to Summer"), subjected the audience to some of my pages; other writers present in the recital: Goldoni, Gozzano, Queneau, Ragazzoni. What can I do? Do I blow my own trumpet or am I ashamed of myself?... What do you say?...Ok: I already know the answer.
I always admired the Garzantine (Italian microencyclopedias published by Garzanti) and I never could presume that one day I should appear in one of them; but it happened, in counter to every forecast. They remembered me in the Radio Encyclopedia, published in 2005. I don't want to make investigations about the current sales of that book.
Here there are some websites that fearlessly give hospitality to news related to me:
I gratefully remember those people who took an interest on me with written or radiotelevisual attendances:
Gabriele Albanesi, Marco Baliani, Willer Barbieri, Renato Barilli, Giuseppe Bartolucci, Ernesto Bassignano, Berenice, Billy Bilancioni, Ninì Candalino, Franco Cavallo, Rita Cirio, Geraldina Colotti, Corrado Costa, Anna Grazia D'Oria, Agnese De Donato, Paola De Sanctis, Antonio Debenedetti, Saverio Del Gaudio, Alberto Dentice, Rodolfo Di Giammarco, Natalia Di Iorio, Vittorio Fagone, Giordano Falzoni, Nicola Fano, Paolo Fenoglio, Federico Frascani, Silvia Garambois, Attilia Garlaschi, Nico Garrone, Patrizio Gerus, Ernesto Grassi, Paolo Guzzi, Viviana Kasam, Mario Lunetta, Giorgio Manacorda, Antonella Martini, Aldo Mastropasqua, Giacomo Mazzone, Nicola Merola, Renato Minore, Valerio Miroglio, Carlo Monterosso, Giuseppe Neri, Renato Nicolini, Paolo Opice, Alessandra Orsi, Elio Pecora, Mauro Pedretti, Lamberto Pignotti, Antonella Rampino, Aldo Rosselli, Patrizio Roversi, Giuseppe Saltini, Gianfranco Salvatore, Napoleone Scrugli, Adriano Spatola, Paolo Staderini, Mario Stefanile, Marcella Valentini, Sebastiano Vassalli, Marisa Vescovo, Francesco Vincitorio, Ugo Volli.
If I forgot some names, it is a matter of somebody who said awful things about me: you can put a wager on it!
