Emilio Solfrizzi, welcome to Puglia with Toti and Tata

Ambassador of “Pugliesitude”, Emilio Solfrizzi opens the season of Ambra Jovinelli with The cooked and the rawa show that promises the flavors of the south, the rhythms of comedy and the certainty of a thirty-year long artistic partnership, the one with Antonio Stornaiolo. On stage from Wednesday 12 October, the show arrives in the city for the first time collecting a repertoire of jokes and portraits that would not fit within the two hours: «We are working hard, we have to choose what to leave and what to remove for the Roman public» says the actor born in Bari in 1962. More than a text, The cooked and the rawhas a canvas on which the pair of actors, in art Toti and Tata,
plays talking about Puglia and how it has radically changed over the years.

How was your artistic relationship born?
«We were friends as children, same desk in high school. He was in the front row because they didn’t trust us to leave us at the back of the class. At school we had a theater available, where I remember seeing a Virgil played by students from the second year of high school that struck us. Since then we have decided to go on stage as a couple, above all to get noticed by the girls ».

Classical repertoire?
«Woody Allen and his God, dialogue between the actor Diabetes and the writer Hepatitis. A marked path”.

Where has it taken you?
«At Dams in Bologna where we studied and continued to do shows together. Antonio has always been a popular leader, someone who is easy to follow because of his sympathy. our shows had great success, but always in the regional sphere, up to the television limelight that Telenorba offered us».

In 1998 you separated.
«But now we meet again for this occasion, and it is even more beautiful. Everyone brings their own experience, their path. We are old friends who have made different choices, I to leave Puglia, he to stay. We rediscover a great artistic understanding and without the anxiety of success because each of us has a road to go back to».

Is Puglia the protagonist?
«It is a tribute to our region, the place we come from which in the last thirty years has radically changed especially in the perception of non-Apulians, going from being Cinderella to an Italian queen, loved for its natural and artistic wonders, places, beaches and of course the food and wine tradition. Having experienced the before and after allows us to laugh at the land we love».

Who laughs more who is from Puglia or who is not?

«I have seen many shows from other regions and no one asks this question. Let’s take the language: for a Roman it is obvious to be understood elsewhere, for a Bari it is not so. The show is for everyone, it has toured Italy. Telling a region actually tells how life has changed for everyone».

First the monologue on Roger Federer, then Molière, now the comedy: there is so much theater in his present. Will TV and cinema audiences find it changed?
“I claim the possibility of being many things. For example, I play the piano and sing, if I wanted I could do a show with just these two elements. I love the unprejudiced public, the one that simply comes to have fun».

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