On Tuesday, May 27, 2014, award-winning Italian theater actor Massimiliano Finazzer Flory stopped off at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor on his latest American tour to perform his self-directed Gran Serata Futurista—a tribute to thought leaders of the early 20th century philosophical movement captained by Filipo Tommaso Marinetti and Giovanni Papini, among others.
The performance was an eloquent and impassioned reenactment of Marinetti’s famous monologues, including signature tuxedo, punctuated by thunderous music and a mesmerizing contemporary dance performance by Michela Lucenti. Given Marinetti’s dense, deliberately chaotic language and incendiary wit, Flory’s seamless, nuanced delivery of the complex poetry was all the more impressive—the monologues showcased the actor’s ability to share emotion with the audience through incredibly subtle, fluid shifts in tone and body language.
In fact, the performance may have been less a tribute to Futurism as it was to Marinetti himself, who Flory calls “unbeatable.” The show ends with a grand finale speech from Giovanni Papini, who defends Marinetti’s ideals, and encapsulates for the audience the sum of the evening. It is no surprise that Flory’s fervor has proved catching—Gran Serata Futurista has recently announced that it will encore in Los Angeles and New York before finishing out the North American tour.
There is no doubt that the prevalence and social consciousness of Futurism were much more eminent in France, Italy and other Western European countries in the early 1900s than in the United States—indeed, the youth and industrial modernity of the U.S. easily lend themselves to being symbols of Futurism for countries with much longer histories; it is precisely the homage to these histories that supporters of Futurism sought to cast off in favor of speed, invention, and other manifests of urban landscape. Still, the concept is relatively obscure for many Americans, and no one is better positioned to enlighten us than Flory himself. Here, five questions with the Master of Monologue about the Futurist movement and his passion for this performance:
(Translation by Silvia Simonetti.)
L’Italo-Americano: How have the goals of Futurism changed from 100 years ago?
Massimiliano Finazzer Flory: Nothing has changed, as the objectives are inside us: desire and hope against pessimism and nostalgia. One hundred years are nothing for us who have been standing on the eternal promontory for centuries. There is a future for Futurism, and it is the sense of the big city. There is a future for Futurism, and it is ubiquity.
IA: How has Futurism succeeded? (In Italy, across the world?)
MFF: Its dissemination is among us—through the Internet. Marinetti’s wireless imagination is exactly the same communication we use in the present time. Futurism is a revolutionary movement, and as such it can’t but be global. Google is a workshop in the sky that was
anticipated by Marinetti. Unfortunately in Italy conservative forces prevailed. In the U.S., which I love, they didn’t!
IA: It used to be that Futurism centered on cars, airplanes, speed, industrialization—what are the new, modern symbols of Futurism?
MMF: SMS, Facebook, Twitter are just a few examples. But I also think of nanotechnologies and touch screens, which were anticipated by Futurists as well. Actually, none of this could be possible without the love for danger, risky, unattempted and untried things, and mostly for young people. They are our symbol.
IA: Describe what the monologues mean to you, and what you get out of doing them/ showing them to others.
MMF: Monologue is an exercise of memory associated to body movement that must express the habit of energy, the bridled strength, the beast’s instinct, but also the passion for a project, for a possible and necessary revolution. On the stage I suffer and I rejoice at the same time, I chomp at the bit and I am held back. The best theater is that of slight contradictions.
IA: How does physical movement play a role in a theoretical concept?
MMF: In the relationship between the space of the stage and our inner space, the latter wins thanks to small movements that, being associated to very strong words, have an impact, [sic] and end up among the people in the audience who must feel, and almost fear my arrival because I speak about their body.
IA: What is your favorite quote/idea from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti or Giovanni Papini and why?
MMF: About Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, I’d say that he taught us that the progress of our country is more important than the progress of the individual citizen; that we can easily switch from serious to pleasant activities; that if we love and want, (we can have) all kinds of freedom except for the freedom of being coward, retrograde and parasite. In Papini, I’d say that there is a praise of (the type of) man who doesn’t yield to butter(ing) up powerful people, who refuses to rent out his pen and to coerce his own soul.
Donate