"You don't remember days, you remember moments," says Cesare Pavese. And there are countless moments captured in the treasure trove of Mario Faticoni 's memories, preserved on the website www.mariofaticoni.com, which went online just a few days ago.
This is a precious private and collective archive. It concerns the actor, director, and journalist born in Verona in 1937, a Sardinian by adoption, but also the entire Sardinian community with whom Faticoni established a highly fruitful dialogue throughout his career on stage. The site encompasses fifty years of the history of theater , journalism, and culture in Sardinia . A monumental work created by a private citizen in the service of the community.
Mario Faticoni did it all on his own, effectively replacing public institutions, saving from oblivion moments that even younger generations can now know: stories, anecdotes, and key pieces linked to the multiple vocations and passions of one of the fathers of contemporary theater in Sardinia.
It is a journey to discover or rediscover the founder, capable of creating companies from scratch, like the Crogiuolo, and historic physical spaces, like the Teatro dell'Arco in Cagliari; of the actor, capable of "caressing - as Nabokov said - the detail, the divine detail," and of the director, a courageous guide behind the scenes, specializing in texts with a strong political and social impact.
There's a sense of an exhilarating journey, from the first steps with the University Theatre Center and then with the Teatro di Sardegna, undertaken with a proud and combative spirit.
"Theatre," Mario Faticoni recently said in an interview with unionesarda.it, "has always been a vital need for me. Through theatre, I was reborn after a childhood and adolescence in 'fatal Verona,' where I suffered greatly from being separated from my mother. I felt a sense of abandonment and loneliness. 'Make faces,' my grandmother would tell me, and I laughed and clowned around with the rudimentary theatrical skills of a child. The stage helped me overcome that trauma."
"The website," emphasizes actress and director Rita Atzeri, now at the helm of the Crogiuolo, "is a true 'digital testament' dedicated to future generations. It is a cultural goldmine that deserves to be studied, protected, and disseminated through all media."