“The Grass is Always Greener”: Carlo Buccirosso Brings Hitchcockian Comedy Thriller to Milan’s Manzoni Theater from 2-14 May

Carlo Buccirosso is the author, director and protagonist of this new comedy that moves between laughter and suspense. An irreproachable bank official, who has been in a marriage crisis for some time, is experiencing a moment of profound dissatisfaction. In a constant spasmodic search for freedom and new life experiences, he will soon find himself subjugated by the neighbor’s weed syndrome. What if that sense of attraction towards someone who is different from you and who succeeds in everything more than you turns into an unstoppable killing spree? An overwhelming show, full of mystery and irony, which will keep us in suspense!. “It’s all homemade. It’s not that I don’t like the classics, I see inflation, I’m not satisfied. Too many make them. By making my own texts, I had this gift from the Lord. Being able to write and say things to a mass of people as huge as the theater is a privilege”.

How did this comedy come about?

Sometimes I start from the title. It’s a thriller but also a comedy like the previous one that was born from my intention: I said I wanted to write a thriller entitled “coup de scene”, and so I did. This year I started with the input of having a great master of thriller Hitchcock, whose scripts were fabulous. I’ve had it since I was a child. Every character of him was a written book, even the most frivolous passages seemed like masterpieces. I tried to make a comedy where all the characters say something interesting. And I think I succeeded because after two and ten hours of show everyone is still listening in silence, because there is the desire to find out how it ends.

Where does this passion for the intersection between yellow and comedy that characterizes your latest works come from?

Right from Hitchcock. If you watch his films you realize that they are comedies after all. Even “Lump in the throat”, which begins with two strangling a friend of theirs, is a comedy, where there’s also laughter, there’s tension but also crazy irony. Why didn’t I have to do it too?

The comedy beyond the yellow-comic mechanism, has envy towards the lives of others at the center. Something very common today.

In the title there is an explanation of everything, but also one of the most current proverbs. With the incursion of social media, they have made this proverb even greener. They make you walk away from your own life by looking at other people’s, believing it to be more beautiful. Social media is the evil of this period. I take care of my profile in a healthy, very light way, I don’t care about having more followers. I’m sorry that many make a fortune with what is not a job.

How is the piece built?

With a cinematographic technique: I start from the last scene. There is a corpse rolled up in a carpet, no one knows who it is or why, and we go back to discover the story. Among other things, the first scene is of great impact: when the curtain opens, the crime scene appears, the loft is completely in disarray, a real disaster. Then the time of a moment of darkness and we start with everything in place. A theatrical magic.

Also in this his show differs from what we see today, where there is often a tendency to go on savings: a very large cast, an extremely well-finished scenography…

I cost a lot to produce, unfortunately today it’s true that theater is no longer a business. They try to tell me it cost too much. Can’t you do less actors? Have an easier scene? No, my characters are all functional. From the protagonist to the bellboy. A bellboy who knocks on the door three times, a Hitchcockian character.

How long did it take you to write “The grass is always greener on the other side”?

This is the comedy that has kept me busy and I also had to give up a film. They had offered me two, one I didn’t like the other yes but I wouldn’t have had time. It took me four and a half months to write this show. For me it is a verification every day. Almost always when I get up and write I see something again, every day I start from the first page.

Has the comedy changed in anything since its debut?

It’s difficult for me to have second thoughts about something, it’s the public that makes me have it. Especially on comical things or some passage that is not clear. If a comic mechanism doesn’t work and doesn’t serve the story, I have to eliminate it immediately. The first performances are tragic because I have to be on stage with an ear to the audience, see how the actors behave and follow my character. But in the end when the applause comes it’s a joy that is worth three times as much.

Maria Bolignano, Elvira Zingone, Peppe Miale, Fabrizio Milano, Donatella De Felice and Fiorella Zullo are on stage with Carlo Buccirosso. The scenes are by Gilda Cerullo and Renato Lori.