12 – 16 November
Written in the immediate aftermath of WWII, this Italian vignette of Neapolitan family strife by playwright Eduardo De Filippo manages to surprise with some memorable oratory from a woman plumbing her instincts for survival.
Filumena, a former prostitute, has been the live-in mistress of wealthy pastry chef Domenico Soriano for 35 years. But now Domenico has a new, much younger mistress lined up and he wants Filumena gone. About to be thrown over for the younger woman, Filumena resorts to a double stratagem that will see power vacillate between her and Domenico, until finally the old man experiences an epiphany, acknowledging that family, his family, comes before all else.
Domenico is a man not used to being outwitted. His money has always done the talking. Whether buying the affections of women or indulging in thoroughbred horses, he always gets what he wants. We first meet him throwing expletives at Filumena, who has just ‘miraculously’ recovered from a supposed terminal illness and after tricking him into marrying her in articulo mortis (at the point of death). He threatens to annul the marriage. But Filumena, originally from the slums of Naples and who has worked in brothels in order to escape poverty (and where she met Domenico), views the potential end of her sojourn with him as an existential threat. She’s not about to give up without a fight.
It is in the back-and-forth banter that De Filippo’s writing reaches another level. Felicity Kendal brings a perfect pitch to the impassioned Filumena’s pleading and scheming in her determination that she will achieve self-respect and the future of her three sons, of whom Domenico initially knows nothing.
The action is divided into two acts, both taking place on Morgan Large’s beautifully crafted set comprising a single luxurious room complete with French windows and a circular painted ceiling, lit with appropriately Neapolitan warmth. The first, although starting brightly with Domenico’s outrage dissolves, arguably for too long, into the banalities of life in the household, with somewhat tiresomely male-centric dialogue between Domenico and his right-hand man Alfredo (Jamie Hogarth), with mouse-like maid Lucia (Sarah Twomey) scurrying in attendance, and waiter (Lee Peck) seeking to impress. Julie Legrand adds a stand-out performance as the loyal servant Rosalia, always a step ahead of her employer it seems. De Filippo has been clever about the way he has crossed her path with that of Filumena’s – could Rosalia have been complicit in the cunning plan to win permanent residence at the Soriano household?
Revealing that one of her three sons is Domenico’s, Filumena trumps any hand Domenico plays in his efforts to dissolve the marriage. In the second act Kelly flips Domenico’s brusqueness to palpable tenderness as he warms to the idea of having a son. But will Filumena triumph? Kendal reveals Filumena’s frailty but underlying steeliness as she tries to secure all her sons’ futures without Domenico finding out which one is his in particular to favour and thus divide.
★★★★☆ Simon Bishop, 13 November 2024
Photo credit: Jack Merriman
