Giovanni Spadolini's first and only theatrical text in Florence

Eighty-five years after its composition and over forty years after its failed debut, "The Madness of a Tsar (Ivan the Terrible)," Giovanni Spadolini's only play, arrives on stage. On Sunday, November 9th, at 6:45 pm, in the Spadolini Nuova Antologia Library at Via Pian de' Giullari 36 in Florence, the Spadolini Foundation will celebrate the centenary of the birth of the Florentine statesman and intellectual with an event of great historical and cultural significance: the Italian premiere of the five-act drama written in 1940 by a very young Spadolini, just 15 years old, together with his friend and classmate Giulio Cattaneo.

An "adolescent sin," as Spadolini himself defined it, imbued with the elegance and light-heartedness that would later distinguish him in public life. The inspiration was born in the second year of high school, when the two fifteen-year-olds, fascinated by the bloodthirsty figure of Ivan the Terrible as told by Alexei Tolstoy—not the celebrated author of "War and Peace," but a Russian playwright and novelist little-known in Europe—offered their own personal reinterpretation of the character, in a series of short, incisive paintings.

The 1940 text, long unfinished, was repeatedly approached for the stage. Cattaneo, a friend of Giorgio Albertazzi, attempted to stage it with the actor, who kept the typescript for a long time, calling it "a surprising demonstration of maturity and imagination."

Between Christmas 1983 and the following New Year's Eve, Spadolini returned to those pages, publishing a facsimile of the original typescript with Nuova Antologia (Polistampa). The debut, once again with Albertazzi as the protagonist, seemed imminent; however, organizational difficulties arose, and the production never saw the light of day, despite arousing curiosity and approval among industry experts.

"More than forty years after that missed opportunity," commented Cosimo Ceccuti, president of the Spadolini Foundation, "our Foundation invites Ugo De Vita, renowned author, actor, and university professor, to bring the project back to the stage, respecting its original form and substance: a single performance lasting about an hour, preserving the extensive monologues." Alongside Ugo De Vita, the cast will include Massimiliano Cardini, a Florentine actor with experience in film with Martone and Sorrentino; Maurizio 'Iccio' Brunetti, who has worked with De Vita, Dapporto, Bonetti, and Ivana Monti; and the young Giulia Guidi, a graduate of the Alessandra Garrone Academy in Bologna.

"This production is a joy and an important opportunity for me," explains Ugo De Vita, who is also directing the show. "I am truly grateful to the Foundation and Cosimo Ceccuti. It is an honor to return to the dramaturgy of these extraordinary 'boys,' but also to renew the homage to Giorgio Albertazzi, a great interpreter of our prose, whom I directed in Luzi's Hamlet, as the voice of the Ghost, having at my side Elisabetta Pozzi, whom I consider the greatest actress of our theater, who today teaches at the Stabile di Genova. The text proposes very current themes and topics, such as the horrors of war and, even before that, family conflicts. With the death of the Tsar's son, Giovanni, a real bonfire of feelings is lit on stage with strong accents of tragedy, in what will be, to all intents and purposes, the theatrical debut of the future President of the Senate and a piece of our cultural history, finally delivered to the stage." (by Paolo Martini)