created by and with Enrico Bonavera
freely based on Il Navigatore del Diluvio di Mario Brelich

Enrico Bonavera is currently the Harlequin in the Piccolo Teatro di Milano’s production of Servant of Two Masters, a show with which he has toured the world over the last twenty years. In addition to his virtuosity in performing with the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte, Bonavera has studied popular storytelling techniques, developing skills as a storyteller that he has expertly combined with those of a mime and physical actor.

In Il vino e suo figlio (Wine and His Son), the absolute protagonist is, as the title suggests, wine itself. It is no coincidence that the play is set in Breganze, one of the "Cities of Wine," situated between hills of volcanic and morainic origin, making its territory particularly suited to viticulture. This vocation, combined with the tenacity of local growers, has given rise to an enological production of excellence.

Bonavera’s performance immerses itself in the "mythical and sacred" value of the drink, investigating its paradoxical connection between the "bodily low" and the philosophy of the palate and of life. Freely based on Il Navigatore del Diluvio, written in 1982 by Mario Brelich, it retraces—through the account of the eldest son, Shem—the mysterious stages of Noah’s discovery of wine and, through it, his deeply personal relationship with God, a very complicit and "human" Yahweh. Through the son's gaze, we follow the progressive and comic evolution of the old Patriarch from the enthusiasm of the first sip to a joyful intoxication, finally finding him transformed by numerous libations into an exalted and dancing prayer of thanks to the Almighty for having survived the Flood. As the son of an "old Alpino," Bonavera also finds space, in a sort of "comic interval," to tell his own personal and first "alcoholic revelation."

Epic, funny, and spiritual (in the sense of "spirit/alcohol"), Il vino e suo figlio was created not only for the theater but is naturally intended for "fine tasters," who will also find satisfaction at the end of the show with a tasting of Breganze wines offered by local producers.

supported by