The hours of dawn: this is how a story is born for Brunella Caputo

Waking up at dawn to write about stories and characters that appeared in dreams or only imagined, before their memory can fade as the day breaks. A method successfully tested for about ten years by the playwright, writer and actress from Salerno Brunella Caputowho has collected the fruit of it in the book just published with Homo Scrivens “The Hours of Dawn”.

Stories of different genres, which take the form of short stories, theatrical dialogues or verses, held together by a single common thread: the chronological order of the dawns in which they were born, a production that runs from 2017 to 2023, crossing the (productive ) period of the pandemic.

The book will be presented tomorrow, Tuesday 23 April at 6pm, in Naples at the Raffaello bookshop (via Kerbaker 35). They will dialogue with the author: the writer Rosi Selo, the journalist Ida Palisi and the publisher Aldo Putignano. With Brunella Caputo, the actor Davide Curzio will be there to read some passages from the book.

Writing at dawn, why?

Because I wake up very early in the morning. For the last ten years, I have lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil following my husband, I went there several times, changing my rhythms, my sleep became even shorter. Additionally, writing early allows me to take note of characters and events that happen in my strange dreams. I write everything down so I don’t forget: this is how my stories for the theater are born, rather than for fiction.

In fact, she comes from dramaturgy, before moving on to narrative and, in part, to poetry.

It all starts from my passion for books, all genres of books. I am a compulsive reader and I have to thank, in part, my high school teachers for educating me in reading. Furthermore, as soon as I started following theatre, I became passionate about texts, so I ranged from a passion for narrative to that for dramaturgy, which was my first love, given that I then became an actress and director. Therefore, starting to adapt stories by illustrious authors, I then tried my hand at writing myself, going on to write and stage my own shows. As for poetry, that too is a story that starts from afar, I have always written down thoughts in the form of verses.

What is the secret to keeping these different souls together?

Contamination has always been my strength. I have always mixed different genres, even in the theater, often ranging from staging to dance, sometimes even passing through art. This is something that belongs to me. And I proposed it again in this latest book, which is a collection of writings of a different genre, it does not follow a precise pattern or logic, it deals with different topics, from family to love, passing through passion. The only thing they have in common is that they were produced at dawn and are laid out according to the chronological order of the dawns, as in a single stream of consciousness.

Upcoming projects?

For the moment, I dedicate myself to the promotion of this book, with which it will tour Campania in various presentation stages until the summer and I will be, thanks to the stand of the Homo Scrivens publishing house, at the Turin Book Fair. In the meantime, I am busy evaluating the proposals that are arriving for the theater festival that I direct in the Salerno area, “La notte dei barbuti”, scheduled for September as part of the Barbuti festival.

THE BOOK

One day, one of my many days with an alarm clock at dawn, I said to myself: why not put together different forms of writing in a single collection as I do with the shows I create? And since this crazy and unusual idea came to me at dawn, I thought I’d tie these writings together with a common thread: the hours of each dawn in which they were written. Because often, but not always, I write at dawn.

«Brunella Caputo’s writing illuminates an ideal day, made of verses and stories» (Maurizio de Giovanni)

THE AUTHOR

Brunella Caputo was born and lives in Salerno. She is a theater director, actress, writer. You are the artistic director of the theater review La notte dei Barbuti within the Barbuti Salerno Festival. She holds theater acting courses and reading aloud. She lends her voice for the recording of audiobooks. You have adapted and brought to the stage, among many, texts by Erri De Luca, Maurizio de Giovanni, Diego De Silva. You write stories for Il Mattino. You have published short stories in several anthologies.

In 2018 he edited and then staged the anthology Attesa-Frammenti di pensiero, inspired by Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and published by Homo Scrivens. In 2020, his collection of short stories “On water and love” was published, again by Homo Scrivens, which in 2020 received special mentions from the jury both in the literary prize of the festival “On the Amalfi coast” and in the literary prize “Iride” ”. In 2022, the anthology she edited “The Nights of the Barbuti – The Theater of Dreams” was published, again for Homo Scrivens, with a preface by Peppe Barra.