Online International Premiere Screening of "Liberi Tutti!"--a new play based on Chesterton's "The Surprise"
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
The presentation is free, but registration is required. To register, please the event page.
Liberi Tutti! was first presented on-stage in August 2022 at the 2022 Rimini Meeting at special events held at Teatro Gali in Rimini and in Brescia, Italy in January 2013.
It has been a privilege for the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture to collaborate once again to bring Chesterton to the Rimini Meeting. Our past collaborations include the state presentations of Chesterton’s "The Ballad of the White Horse" (2011), "Manalive" (2013) and a great Chesterton exhibit entitled "La Casa di Chesterton" (2013) which received over 60,000 visitors in one week. We are grateful to the Rimini Meeting and Otello Cenci for their invitation to be a part of the 2022 Rimini Meeting.
About Liberi Tutti!, a production inspired by G. K. Chesterton’s play The Surprise
The main theme is man and his desire for freedom: sometimes uncomfortable, often risky,
but always indispensable. A theatrical production of the Rimini Meeting, directed
by Otello Cenci; playwright by Otello Cenci and Giampero Pizzol. Literary consultancy
by Annalisa Teggi and the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture.
The protagonist of Liberi Tutti! is a puppeteer with a noble heart who writes a simple fairytale comedy to show that telling a story without bad characters and evil deeds is possible. The bet is won, but the puppeteer is not satisfied. For his puppets, he wants a more ambitious future, he does not want them to interpret his work with obedience: for them, he dreams of the miracle of being, and not just acting.
Liberi Tutti! is inspired in a lesser-known work by G. K. Chesterton, The Surprise (1931), written by the English writer for a presentation at the Beaconsfield Theatre, his adopted town. With this text, Chesterton perhaps wanted to respond, in his own way to Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921); it is the theatre play of the theatre, in fact, this also gives body to Chesterton's text, which differs from the work Pirandello, for its extreme lightness and irony, which are his trademarks with which he treats deep and important themes. The plot, has been reinterpreted for a contemporary audience by Otello Cenci and Giampiero Pizzol, focuses on man and the intimate questions that that animate him, addressing with wit and a surprising attitude the themes of the free love passions and the desire for happiness.
The theme of last year's Meeting was "A Passion for the Person." Otello Cenci remarked: "As I was looking for a work that would deepen the theme of this year’s meeting, I came across the text of Chesterton's The Surprise. This text has been adapted under the title of Liberi Tutti! which is based on Chesterton's play written in 1931 for a performance in his hometown of Beaconsfield. Through this text, perhaps Chesterton wanted to answer in his own way to Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello (1921). Otello says: "it is the Metatheatre that gives substance to Chesterton’s text, which differs from Pirandello's work for its extreme lightness and irony through which profound and important themes are addressed."
In 1991, Cam Fuller, of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix writes the following: On one level, it's a simple story about puppets that come to life; perfect children's fair. One step deeper, it's a profound examination of the nature of man's relationship to God, perfect grist for the questioning philosopher in us all."
In 2015, the Review published a note by the director of the adaptation done by the Storm Theatre in New York: "Chesterton believed that the Incarnation was the idea that was central to civilization. The Surprise is a play, which expresses his conviction in a surprising way. Although incomplete at the time of his death in 1936, it was edited and—perhaps—slightly revised when it was published in 1953 with an admiring Preface by Dorothy L. Sayers."
About Otello Cenci, Director of Liberi Tutti!
Otello Cenci is Director of the Performing Arts Division at the Rimini Meeting and
Creative and Artistic Director at Made Officina Creativa. He has produced stage adaptations
of works by T. S. Eliot, A. Camus and G. Leopardi as well as TV productions (RAI2),
and the stage production of Aldo Finzi's "La Serenata al Vento," and has also directed
productions of works by Shakespeare, Thomas More and Paul Claudel among others. In
2011, he worked with the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture for the stage
production of Chesterton's "The Ballad of the White Horse" (Rimini Meeting, 2011);
and in 2013 for the production of Chesterton's "Manalive" (Rimini Meeting 2013). Mr.
Cenci is currently working with the Institute in preparation for this year’s stage
production of Chesterton's play "The Surprise" which will be presented at the Rimini
Meeting 2022 (August).
About the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture
The G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture at Seton Hall University, South
Orange, N.J.. the Institute was founded in 1974 by Father Ian Boyd, C. S. B., its
purpose is to promote the thought of G. K. Chesterton and his circle and more broadly,
to explore the application of Chestertonian ideas in the contemporary world. The Institute's
work consists of conferences, lecture series, research, and writing. The Chesterton Review, founded in 1974, has been widely praised both for its scholarship and for the quality
of its writing. The journal was founded by Father Ian Boyd, C. S. B., and is edited
by Dr. Dermot Quinn. It includes a wide range of articles not only on Chesterton himself,
but on the issues close to his heart in the work of other writers and in the modern
world. It has devoted special issues to C. S. Lewis, George Bernanos, Hilaire Belloc,
Maurice Baring, Christopher Dawson, Cardinal Manning, the Modernist Crisis, J. R.
R. Tolkien, Fantasy Literature, Special Polish Issue, Special Charles Dickens issue,
the most recent "Special Conversion Issue," and many others. For information about
the Institute and The Chesterton Review please contact [email protected] or visit the Institute's website.
About the Rimini Meeting
The Meeting for friendship among peoples (Meeting per l'amicizia fra I popoli) is
a multi-event Catholic festival held every year in Rimini, Italy lasting one week
at the end of August. This year, the Meeting will present its 42nd edition, on the
theme of "The Passion for the Person," at the Fiera I Rimini from August 20-25. With
the exception of less than a dozen people that work full time, the festival is entirely
staged, managed and dismantled by 4,000 volunteers from Italy and all over the world.
The meeting has about 800,000 attendees in one week. In 2013, the G. K. Chesterton
Institute co-sponsored a large exhibit entitled "La casa di Chesterton" which was
visited by over 60,000 people in one week.
Categories: Faith and Service
