Francesca Nunzi, in the role of Mena, and Marco Predieri, as Count Camillo Benso, known as Millo, bring to life a hilarious reconstruction of the events that led to the Unification of Italy, imagining their somewhat chaotic origins in the kitchen of Palazzo Cavour.
So what really lies behind the Unification of Italy? Everyone thinks of the great men of History, but what if the fate of the Italian peninsula had actually been saved by an unsuspected housekeeper?
The production is a lively and sophisticated theatrical game in which the two actors move through a kaleidoscope of situations, accents, quotations and wordplay, all leading towards the great undertaking: uniting the country into a single nation.
The audience gets to peek behind the scenes, where all the leading figures of the Risorgimento are at work, by slipping into the great kitchen of the Cavour household, the true headquarters of the operations that would lead to Italian unification.
So, will this cake ever get made? Pardon, will Italy?
The answer lies in the hands of Mena, our housekeeper, and in her devotion to caring for and “protecting” the image of the man everyone knows as the Statesman, the public figure always in the right place. Behind closed doors, however, he reveals himself as a cautious hypochondriac, at times childlike and a wildly ambitious dreamer, jealous of Garibaldi and anxious to leave posterity with a favourable image of himself.
Mena knows this Cavour well, very well, both his virtues and his flaws. After all, it is well known that the real Cavour was also a celebrated man about town in Turin, fond of chocolate, cafés and a certain kind of nightlife.
Marco Predieri’s old degree in History has therefore proved useful, joining forces with Francesca Nunzi’s creative flair and versatility. The result of this encounter? That remains to be discovered, including its more “prophetic” side, through the almost clairvoyant intuition of Mena, who frequently surprises the audience with sharp references to Italy today.
