Eduardo De Filippo

• Born: May 24, 1900
• Birthplace: Naples, Italy
• Died: October 31, 1984
• Place of death: Rome, Italy

Other Literary Forms

Eduardo De Filippo published poetry, wrote several screenplays, and contributed several articles on the theater and acting to major Italian newspapers.

Achievements

It took many years for Eduardo De Filippo to achieve the national and international success of the other famous Italian playwrights, Luigi Pirandello and Ugo Betti, despite his extraordinary dramatic output and despite the continuous and astounding success of his plays, which were performed in the major cities of Italy and elsewhere in Europe. In large part, this relative critical neglect was a consequence of De Filippo’s decision to employ the Neapolitan dialect.

In 1932, however, the De Filippo Company presented Chi è cchiù felice ’e me! (who is happier than I?) at one of the most prestigious theaters of Naples, the Sannazzaro, and this, coupled with the backing of the well-known Renato Simoni, Massimo Bontempelli, and Luigi Pirandello, the 1934 Nobel Prize-winner in literature, began to shape De Filippo’s place in the history of Italian literature. By 1938, he was receiving wide critical acclaim. The Best House in Naples, published in 1947, was the dramatic vehicle that propelled De Filippo into stardom; with it, he struck at the very heart of the problem of contemporary living.

Perhaps De Filippo’s greatest contribution to the dramatic theater was the reestablishment of communication between the stage and the audience. De Filippo believed that audiences want the author to tell them about things that happen in their own lives—things with which they can identify. De Filippo said that when the author does this, he enters the theater from the stage door but leaves it arm in arm with the audience. To be successful in this endeavor, the author must prepare a script that is always an instrument that is mobile, flexible, and malleable for the public.

A second important contribution was De Filippo’s refinement of some of the elements of the commedia dell’arte as they existed in the Neapolitan dialect theater. His Pulcinella and other commedia dell’arte characters resembled the original, but they were changed to become more dramatic, more capable of conveying their real suffering and sadness within the comic nature of their prescribed roles.

On December 18, 1972, De Filippo was awarded the prestigious Feltrinelli Prize for Drama, and on December 16, 1975, he received the Pirandello Prize for Drama. On July 15, 1977, he was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Letters, by the University of Birmingham, England, and in November, 1980, he received the same degree from the University of Rome. In September, 1981, he was made a senator for life in the Italian Parliament.

Biography

Eduardo De Filippo was born in Naples in 1900, the illegitimate son of Eduardo Scarpetta and Luisa De Filippo, the niece of his legitimate wife. It can be said that De Filippo was born into the theater, since his father was an actor and playwright who also owned a theatrical company.

De Filippo made his acting debut at the age of four, performing the part of a small Japanese child in his father’s play, The Geisha, and then played minor roles for the next five years. His father taught him assiduously the art of acting, especially the techniques of working within the framework of the improvised script and the understanding and projection of the characters of the commedia dell’arte, particularly that of Pulcinella.

De Filippo did go to school, but he found school to be boring and stultifying. He looked forward to the summers, when he would work and perform in the theater. When he was fourteen, he joined the acting troupe of Enrico Altieri, a popular comic actor in Neapolitan plays. It was from Altieri that De Filippo learned to portray the character Pulcinella and to capture the spirit of the Neapolitan theater, which was to be the cornerstone of his own plays—that is, the sadness of the people and the bitter reality of life in Naples. In 1911, De Filippo joined the Vincenzo Scarpetta troupe, staying with that group until called for military service in 1920. After his military service, he joined the Francesco Corbinci troupe, then the Peppino Villani troupe, and finally he rejoined Vincenzo Scarpetta in 1923. His father died in 1925.

Having already written a one-act play, Farmacia di turno (pharmacy on duty), he moved to his first three-act play, Uomo e galantuomo (man and gentleman). He continued acting with several troupes, including those of Pasquale Molinari and Luigi Carini, but he dedicated as much time as possible to playwriting. The success of his plays prompted him to propose to his brother, Peppino, and his sister, Titina, that they should form their own company. In 1931, they formed the Compagnia del Teatro umoristico: I De Filippo. The company performed in Naples and Rome and, in 1932, it opened at the Sannazzaro Theater in Naples with Chi è cchiù felice ’e me!, to great acclaim. The troupe weathered the difficult war years and the death of their mother in 1944, but widening disagreement between Peppino and Eduardo on what course their theater should follow led to the group’s dissolution. Peppino wanted to continue performing the traditional Neapolitan farces, whereas Eduardo leaned quite heavily toward plays that expressed his concern for the social realities of his time. As a result of the breakup, Eduardo bought the old San Ferdinando theater, renovated it, and opened it with the express purpose of providing the public with contemporary plays that focused on real political and social problems. Thus, his success in the world of drama was assured.

De Filippo had married Dorothy Pennington in 1928, but the marriage was to last only a few months (it was annulled in the Republic of San Marino in 1952). In 1956, he married Thea Prandi, a former actress, with whom he had been living for some time and with whom he had had two children, Luca and Luisella. The couple separated in 1959, and Thea died in 1961. In 1977, he married an old friend, Isabella Quarantotti. De Filippo died on October 31, 1984.

Analysis

Eduardo De Filippo’s early, intensive training in the Neapolitan theater led him to believe in the importance of strong characterization rather than of plot; thus, his plays revolve around the everyday life of the people of Naples—their language, customs, beliefs, superstitions, mannerisms, habits. He made it a point to show the seamier side of life, and so he filled his plays with those types who lived on the fringes of acceptable social behavior and who were either victims of social injustices or who perpetrated injustices on others.

Indeed, in De Filippo’s plays, there is a continuous examination of the concept of justice—or, if one wishes, the concept of injustice. He primarily focuses on the oppression of the disenfranchised because it is they who have been beaten, reviled, and abused. The guilty are those who have the power, who rule, who command, and they, in turn, are morally corrupt. Their corruption engenders a disrespect for the law, a lack of faith in social mores, and an invalidation of all the rules of living within a social order. The only avenue left for the weak is to fight back, to rebel, to take the law into their own hands, to seek vengeance—in short, to create their own laws. The end result can be, and often is, an anarchic way of life that strengthens the power of the corrupt and weakens the victims of corruption. Consequently, distrust, threats, thievery, ransom, and lies become an integral part of the lives of the masses. Even when those who have suffered injustices at the hands of corrupt leaders become a part of the middle class and seem to have what they need to live well, they care only for their own well-being and they will do anything—illegal and corrupt, if necessary—to maintain their newly found social position.

De Filippo dedicated his life to combating injustice and corruption, and his plays were the vehicle with which the battle was fought. He realized that people had to defend themselves constantly from the onslaught of those evils. Yet if the common people could not find justice and purity in the laws of the land nor in those who upheld the laws of the land, what were they to do? To whom could they turn for help and guidance? The countervailing force should have been the nuclear family, according to De Filippo. Unfortunately, the family was, in effect, simply a microcosm of life, of reality, so that the family in his plays reflects those difficulties and problems that face all members of society: a lack of communication between people (in the family it would be a lack of communication between husband and wife and/or between parents and children), a distrust of one another, the experiences of jealousy, hate, bitterness, greed, treachery, and oppression, and the agony of illness and death. The conclusion is that when the family is no longer a haven from the evil in the world, people can find solace only by isolating themselves from everyone. In their isolation, they create an ideal, fantasy world in which the ugly and repulsive modes of living are nonexistent. It is here that De Filippo is a master as he skillfully plays illusion against reality. Many critics see the influence of Luigi Pirandello, with whom De Filippo had collaborated on a stage presentation of Pirandello’s Liolà (pr. 1916; English translation, 1952) and Il berretto a sonagli (pr. 1917; Caps and Bells, 1957), and his own L’abito nuovo.

It is clear that De Filippo wants one to believe that people need illusions when they no longer can face the harsh realities of life, and his characters tend to create those illusions when they have reached the breaking point. De Filippo, however, also conveys the belief that people cannot shut out reality forever; they must struggle to face it, to grasp it firmly, to wrestle with it, and eventually to change it. This is the challenge that De Filippo makes his characters face; this is the challenge that he offers to all his public. Corruption and injustice can be destroyed if one is willing to fight them and to reestablish true moral values, especially if those values revolve around the traditional one of family unity. The metamorphosis of the isolated individual into a caring, loving member of the family unit is not an easy or rapid one; rather, it is extremely difficult and gradual, for those who surround the isolated individual constantly erect barriers that hamper the transformation. What the individual must do is recognize that there are barriers, identify them, hurdle them, and then be prepared to defend his newly found moral stance against the derisive jeers of the other members of the family. He must pronounce convincingly the importance of the essential values of family unity.

De Filippo divided his plays into two groups: Cantata dei giorni pari (cantata of the even days) and Cantata dei giorni dispari (cantata of the odd days). The former encompasses all the plays written up to the beginning of World War II and the latter all the plays written after 1940. The “plays of the even days” generally reflect De Filippo’s fascination with the farcical Neapolitan theater. They have been characterized by critics as the least important of his works, yet they show, in some fashion, his preoccupation with the ideas and the themes that dominate his “plays of the odd days.” The farcical may be the most evident aspect of those early plays, but underneath the farcical there already is a satiric current that probes the social injustices of society.

Farmacia di turno

De Filippo’s first play, Farmacia di turno, lacks the nuance and the bite of his later plays. This one-act play, however, anticipates, in modest form, the characterizations, the realistic locales in Naples, and the themes of his mature works. The story takes place in a pharmacy owned by Saverio, a setting filled with people who are seeking medicines that will alleviate their suffering. The play suggests that some of their ills are spiritual rather than physical and that their pain cannot be alleviated by medicines. Saverio’s wife has deserted him, but this does not bother him because he never did think highly of marriage. One of the clients has asked for rat poison, which he then inadvertently leaves on the counter. In the meantime, Saverio’s former wife’s servant comes in to get some medicine for her mistress, picks up the wrong parcel—the rat poison—and goes home. The obvious conclusion is that Saverio’s former wife will die and that he will be falsely accused of murder. Thus, the fickle hand of fate has struck once again. Although the story sounds implausible, there is enough truth in it to make the play believable.

Uomo e galantuomo

De Filippo’s first three-act play, Uomo e galantuomo, has none of the sadness and cynicism of Farmacia di turno. It is filled with comic dialogue and slapstick humor in the vein of the commedia dell’arte. Even so, it does touch on the Pirandellian theme of sanity versus insanity. Alberto, impresario of a penniless theatrical troupe, falls in love with a young girl, Bice, about whom he knows nothing. Gennaro, the lead comic of the troupe, is chosen to find out where she lives, which he does. Alberto goes to Bice’s mother to announce his intentions to marry her but learns that Bice already is married. In order to save face, he feigns insanity. Bice’s husband requests that Alberto be committed to an asylum, but the authorities rule that he is sane; Bice’s husband insists that Alberto continue acting insane to save his own honor. Learning that Bice has had an affair and that Bice knows about his own extramarital affairs, the husband also feigns insanity, and when the innkeeper presents the bill to Gennaro, he too “becomes insane” in order not to pay the bill. The weakness of the play is that the farcical humor overshadows a potentially significant theme: the plight of people who must resort to such devious means in order to survive.

Sik-Sik, The Masterful Magician

The jewel of De Filippo’s even-day plays is Sik-Sik, The Masterful Magician. Sik-Sik is a clearly defined and fully developed character. As De Filippo describes him, he is a “typical traditional strolling actor: poor, tormented, and . . . a philosopher.” Sik-Sik struggles to survive in a society that does not seem to have a place for him. His life is meaningless, and yet his will to survive is strong. He lives in a world of illusion and dreams: He is the master of his art, and he will be acclaimed by all as such, or so he believes. He hungers for applause, the food that will sustain him. (These are the same factors that are a part of the lives of the characters in De Filippo’s post-World War II plays.)

Sik-Sik usually has a compare (assistant) who is planted in the audience to participate in Sik-Sik’s magical tricks. One night, the regular assistant, Nicola, does not show up, and so Sik-Sik gives the job to Rafele, who is well-meaning but somewhat incompetent. When Nicola appears at curtain time to do his usual job, Rafele does not want to relinquish his new position. A scuffle ensues between the two, and during the course of the performance, when Sik-Sik asks for a volunteer from the audience, both Nicola and Rafele respond, and Sik-Sik’s magical, illusionary world begins to crumble. To the audience’s great amusement, the secrets behind the trunk escape and the disappearing doves are revealed. In the confusion, a real padlock instead of a fake one is used to lock Sik-Sik’s pregnant wife in a trunk, and when she cannot escape, as she usually does, Sik-Sik is forced to break the lock with a hammer to free her. Finally, a chicken instead of a pigeon comes out of Rafele’s hat, but Sik-Sik saves at least a small part of his magical “mastery” by telling the audience that through his magic he has turned the pigeon into a chicken.

Napoli milionaria!

Napoli milionaria! initiated the second phase of De Filippo’s plays, the plays of the odd days, in which the emphasis is on specific themes. Napoli milionaria! is a bittersweet comedy that lashes out at the war, the government and its leaders, corruption, and ill-gotten wealth. The war envelops the people with the destruction and killing that accompany it, but the true sadness is the effect of the war on the behavior of the people. War seems to bring out all the worst elements, and destroy all the good, of human conduct. The story revolves around the Iovine family. Gennaro Iovine, unemployed because of the war, becomes involved in the black market, an activity he abhors but in which he feels he must engage to survive. On the other hand, his wife, Donna Amalia, is not bothered by it; what must be done, must be done, she contends. When one day the police arrive to verify their suspicions about the Iovine family, Gennaro hides the merchandise under the bed, lies on it pretending that he is dead, and is surrounded by crying women. An aerial bombardment causes alarm and disrupts the mourning. The investigating officer is moved by the fact that Gennaro keeps on playing dead in the face of real danger and decides not to take any action against him. Later the audience learns that Gennaro has been deported to Germany and that Donna Amalia has become rich. On his return home, Gennaro finds that he is an outsider; he is ignored by his wife. He also learns that his oldest daughter is pregnant by an American soldier who has deserted her, his son is a thief, and another daughter is critically ill. Donna Amalia realizes the ugliness of the black market when she cannot get medicine for her daughter because other black marketeers have it all. Finally, the accountant, Riccardo, a victim of Donna Amalia’s oppressive black-market prices, provides the medicine to help cure the daughter. The moral is that unity extends beyond the family to society as a whole.

The Best House in Naples

The most famous De Filippo play is perhaps The Best House in Naples, also known as Filumena; it was certainly his most successful. It is a play that focuses on the overpowering authority of the nuclear family and the moral demands that it places on each member of the family. Filumena is the very essence of the woman who believes in God, in religious faith, in sacrifice, in patience, and she also is a passionate woman subject to moments of violent jealousy. Filumena, born into poverty and forced by poverty to become a prostitute in her youth, has been the kept woman of the well-to-do Domenico for more than twenty years. She perceives the injustice of life, however, when Domenico shifts his affections to a younger woman. With a fierce determination to establish her dignity as a woman, a true wife, and a mother (she has had three sons by unknown fathers), she devises a plan to force Domenico to marry her. She feigns a serious illness, and on her “deathbed” she asks Domenico to grant her one last wish—to marry her. He does so believing she will die very soon. Instead, Filumena leaps from the bed, asserts herself as a wife should, and takes over the running of the house. Domenico wants to have the marriage annulled on the grounds that he was tricked into marriage, but when Filumena tells him that one of the sons is his, refusing to reveal which one it is, he accepts the situation and adopts all three. Thus the traditional family has been established, family unity prevails, and Filumena and Domenico have achieved a sense of dignity.

The Best House in Naples symbolically deals with the social truism of the brotherhood of man: Love knows no social barriers. All members of society are equal and all are entitled to justice. In its use of the conventional materials of farce and comic theater to make a serious point, it is characteristic of De Filippo’s drama.

Bibliography

Ardito, Carlo. Introduction to Four Plays, by Eduardo De Filippo. London: Methuen Drama, 1992. In his introduction to his translations of four major plays by De Filippo, Ardito presents information on Filippo’s life and works.

Ciolli, Marco. The Theatre of Eduardo De Filippo: An Introductory Study. New York: Vantage Press, 1993. A critical study of the drama of De Filippo. Bibliography.

Hampton, Wilborn. “A Popular Italian Playwright and a Wartime Family.” Review of Napoli milionaria!, by Eduardo De Filippo. New York Times Current Events Edition, February 13, 1995, p. C15. A review of De Filippo’s Napoli milionaria!, performed by the Jean Cocteau Repertory at the Bouwerie Lane Theater in New York.

Mignone, Mario B. Eduardo De Filippo. Boston: Twayne, 1984. A biography of De Filippo that covers his life and works. Bibliography and index.

Stokes, John. “Priceless Tears.” Review of Filumena, by Eduardo De Filippo. Times Literary Supplement, October 23, 1998, p. 22. Stokes reviews a production of De Filippo’s Filumena (The Best House in Naples), directed by Peter Hall and starring Judi Dench at the Piccadilly Theatre in London.