Counterfeit classics : Shakespeare/Camilleri joking with masks, translations and traditions

Abstract

Literature and life: Shakespeare between England and Italy. Some years ago Troppu Trafficu ppi nenti was performed in Catania under the direction of Giuseppe Dipasquale. It was a translation, adaptation and parody of Shakespeare's comedy, Much Ado About Nothing written by Andrea Camilleri in Sicilian dialect. Camilleri and Dipasquale's adaptation was published in a book containing three texts of the same nature; the other two were a stage adaptation of a previous novel by Camilleri, II birraio di Preston (The Preston Brewer), first performed in Catania in 1999 with the same director, and recently revived, and La Cattura, already staged in 2001 with a splendid performance by the actor Turi Ferro. La Cattura was an adaptation for the theatre of a short story by Pirandello, an author who was a classic first of the Sicilian and then of the Italian stage. A second edition of Troppu Trafficu was published in the prestigious Oscar Mondadori collection, together with a translation into Italian by Masolino D 'Amico only two years ago. A translation is no doubt necessary if the play is to be properly understood by an Italian audience. However, it changes the nature of the 'gesture' made by that first experiment, originally performed in the Catania Summer Festival of 2000.