De Filippo, ‘the Italian Chekhov’, on stage in Ontario

In this Canadian production, that liveliness takes shape in a relentless rhythm of syncopation, shouts and abrupt changes in tone, without ever descending into farce. The result is an affectionate, almost postcard-like portrait of the land of good food and the good life.

It is above all the language that captures the atmosphere — quite apart from a first-rate cast, including Gordon S. Miller, who plays Luigi Ianniello here and previously played Calogero in *La Grande Magia* in 2023. Cimolino has worked with Donato Santeramo, a professor at Queen’s University, on a new English translation that preserves the syntactic structure and intellectual rhythm of the original without sounding contrived. There remain small interjections — ‘Signora, buon appetito’ — which anchor the text to its Italian character.

Where, after all, would it seem natural for a play to spend the first five minutes with Donna Rosa explaining to the waitress how to chop an onion? Only in Italia, only in Naples. And yet, in Stratford, that ‘Italian-ness’ takes on different forms: it changes language and ethnicity, without becoming any less recognisable.

The people who inhabit that landscape are, in fact, part of contemporary Canada. Cimolino employs colour-conscious casting: he does not insist on an ethnic match between actors and characters, provided that the family ties come across as credible. It is an almost natural choice in a country largely shaped by immigration (and where 4.3 per cent of the population declare Italian origins, according to Statistics Canada).

Often, universalising a classic means suspending it in a timeless, place-less void. Here, the opposite occurs: the work opens up to the diverse people of today’s Canada, whilst the Naples of 1959 remains vivid in its social codes and rituals. When the whole family sits down to eat, the lights dim and a mandolin accompanies the scene. Sunday lunch becomes a nostalgic idyll reminiscent of Federico Fellini’s great banquet in Rome.

Perhaps this is precisely where Eduardo goes the furthest: in showing just how many different forms ‘Neapolitan-ness’ can take without ceasing to be such. On the opening night, during the interval, the theatre bar was serving small bowls of vegetarian ragù with bread for mopping up the sauce. Not quite Naples, but the aroma in the air has a familiar feel to it.