NEMICO MIO
Like Waiting for Godot, Nemico mio deals in a humorous and haunting way with the bizarre relationship between two eccentric men as they wait in vain for something to happen. Like Estragon and Vladimir, their hopes are delayed and trod upon, but never extinguished. Unlike Beckett’s pair, however, the wasteland where Giulio and Tommaso wait is not an abstract country lane, but the mental institution they are confined in.
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D’Ambrosi, who plays Giulio, along with Italian film actor Stefano Abbati as Tommaso, based Nemico mio (“Enemy Mine”) on two actual patients at a psychiatric hospital in Rome where D’Ambrosi and his theater company perform. One day, D’Ambrosi saw a patient saying goodbye to everyone–he was going to the beach. The patient went into the courtyard, and as D’Ambrosi watched, he began to say good-bye to everyone there, as well. The man paid special attention to another patient who appeared to be oblivious to him. It turned out that the man had been doing this same thing every day for ten years, and had never even seen the seaside.
The orange raft is Tommaso’s lifeboat, inside of which he can be and do whatever he wants. It can be a towel, or a robe, or a secret hiding place for his prized possessions (which include a mysterious little silver box and a gallery of nudie pictures). Tommaso, mute except for some strange little noises, is self-contained and relatively happy in his private world.
D’Ambrosi’s Giulio is equally exciting. He has an endearing naivete, even when he pants and salivates at Tommaso’s girlie gallery. While Abbati shows the power that can be present in insanity, D’Ambrosi lets us feel the pain as Giulio realizes he’s truly ill.
