Attilio Scarpellini in conversation with Lorenzo Pavolini
con readings by Attilio Scarpellini and Gabriele Portoghese
Figlio di cane is a play by philosopher and theatre critic Attilio Scarpellini. In 2024, Mimesis Edizioni decided to publish the text with a preface by critic Andrea Cortellessa and an afterword by author François Grosso. The publishing house chooses this year to add to a well-known series on philosophy and theatre an insightful and radical piece of writing such as Scarpellini’s – that this time focuses on the footsteps of memory and the fragility of Vladimir Slepian.
A bench. Two men. They sit one with their backs to each other, like on either side of a Moebius strip. They talk to each other but do not reach each other, a thin wall separates them. One questions his own fractured memory. The other is hungry and would like to become a dog. From a dialogue of shadows emerges the figure and words of Vladimir Slepian, artist and writer “without a body of work”, a cynical vagabond of thought in the Paris of the 1970s who, having fled the Soviet Union, published a single short story, Fils de chien.
Attilio Scarpellini, writer, radio author and dramaturg. Known since early 2000 for his early morning programmes on Radio 3 Rai (“Mattino 3 Lucifero” and later “Qui Comincia”). Between 1999 and 2023, he carried out an intense activity as militant critic on the pages of several major Italian newspapers including: “Diario della settimana”, “Carta”, “La differenza”, “L’unità”, “Lettera22” and “doppiozero”. He has translated theatre texts by Peter Handke, David Lescot, Guillaume Poix and Alexandra Badea. Among his books: L’angelo rovesciato. Quattro saggi sull’11 settembre e la scomparsa della realtà (Rome, 2008, edizioni Idea), La fortezza vuota. Discorso sulla perdita di senso del teatro (with Massimiliano Civica, Rome, 2014, edizioni dell’Asino), Il tempo sospeso delle immagini (Milan, 2020, Mimesis) and his first published play, Figlio di cane (Milan, 2024, Mimesis).
Lorenzo Pavolini, writer, radio author, theatre sideman. He is deputy editor of the magazine “Nuovi argomenti”. He dedicated the book Accanto alla tigre (published in 2010 and finalist for the Premio Strega) to the figure of the fascist hierarch and minister Alessandro Pavolini, his father. He worked from 1998 to 2020 at Radio3 Rai, where – often in collaboration with Anna Antonelli – he edited several programmes, radio documentaries (Centolire, 1998-2003 and Tre soldi, until 2017), radio dramas (Atto unico presente and Dialoghi possibili, which won the Prix Italia in 2001 in the Radio Drama category with Dhulan, la sposa indiana by Melania Mazzucco, directed by Wilma Labate), radionovelas (Sala Giochi by Goffredo Fofi and Maurizio Braucci, 2001), the readings Ad alta voce, the Pantheon series, the Wikiradio episodes, the “southernist” programme Zazà.
detail of the artwork Composizione astratta (1958) by Vladimir Slepian
