Lovers, shows in Rome

From 2 to 19 May Massimiliano Gallo and Fabrizia Sacchi are the protagonists of Amanti, a brilliant and funny comedy, written and directed by Ivan Cotroneo, about love, sex, betrayal and marriage, long-term relationships and adventures in term, on the masculine and the feminine, and ultimately on the search for happiness which always takes different paths than expected.

It’s September.
Claudia and Giulio meet for the first time in front of an elevator, in the lobby of a bourgeois building. The doors open. She’s leaving, he has to come up. But Claudia realizes that she has forgotten a handkerchief on her, and she goes back up with Giulio. The apartment to which they are headed is the same: in fact, they only now discover that they both frequent the same analyst, Dr. Gilda Cioffi, a psychotherapist specializing in couples problems. They have a weekly appointment with the doctor every Wednesday: at 3pm for her, at 4pm for him. They introduce themselves by shaking hands. It is their first physical contact. Two months later we find Claudia and Giulio in a hotel room. They are making love. They became lovers. Both married, Giulio with a wife and three children, Claudia with a husband younger than her with whom she is trying to have a baby, they see each other regularly and clandestinely to be together. And they tell themselves it’s just sex, adventure, escape. Which don’t hurt anyone. That space really has nothing to do with their real lives. But can this really be the case when two people meet repeatedly and claim to control sex and love?
Amanti follows the story of Giulio and Claudia’s relationship, interspersing their meetings in the hotel with the dialogues that each of them has with Dr. Cioffi, who obviously ignores that her two problematic patients are having a relationship with each other. So their story unfolds between encounters in bed, and the truths or lies that they simultaneously tell to the doctor, to whom they go alone or together with their respective partners, Laura and Roberto. A temporal progression made up of misunderstandings, cheats, missteps, fake presentations, lies, messes, prudence, and even miraculously avoided troubles. Until something upsets all the balance.

Lovers is a new two-act comedy about love, sex, betrayal and marriage, long-term relationships and long-term adventures, the masculine and the feminine, and ultimately the pursuit of happiness that always takes different paths from those expected. A brilliant and funny comedy, with situations and dialogues that make you laugh, but also an exploration of the feelings of a couple who find refuge, comfort, fun in hiding, but also anxiety, worry, and perhaps danger.

“The themes of Amanti have always belonged to me. In my novels, in the films, in the television series that I have written and directed, the comparison between the masculine and the feminine, the breaking of gender stereotypes, the overbearing force of sex and that still more devastating than love, have always had great space, in the continuous attempt to tell the evolution of society and customs through love relationships. In the comedy these themes take shape in a modern and extremely funny story, but also full of tenderness and truth, as always happens in the comedy of life.”
Ivan Cotroneo

Massimiliano Gallo
LOVERS
with
Fabrizia Sacchi

Orsetta De Rossi
Elenora Russo and Diego D’elia

scenes Monica Sironi
Alberto Moretti costumes
lights Gianfilippo Corticelli

A COMEDY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IVAN COTRONEO