The Syndicate

Eduardo De Filippo, Mike Poulton

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781408156902
• eBook ISBN: 9781408156919
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Smuggled out of Naples in his youth after stabbing a brutal night-watchman to death, Antonio Barracano returned home in the 1960s as a wealthy man. He used his newfound status to quash his murder conviction, and was soon feared but respected throughout the city. Don Antonio has made it his life's work to bring rough justice to the criminals of Naples who otherwise have no fear of the law. He rules the city's underbelly with a rod of iron. The play begins when a respectable but poor young man who has resolved to murder his father comes to Don Antonio for advice. The Neapolitan 'Godfather' emerges from the shadows to make the young man's father an offer he can't refuse. The comedy grows blacker as 'respectable' Naples collides with its criminal underworld. A dark comedy of pathos and farce by one of Italy's pre-eminent dramatists of the twentieth century, Eduardo De Filippo's The Syndicate ( Il sindaco del rione Sanità ) is made newly accessible and contemporary by this translation by Mike Poulton.

Act One

Time: mid-September 1960, 3.45 a.m. — just before dawn. A large, comfortable sitting room. Through French windows which lead onto a low balcony which gives access to the extensive grounds of the house in Terzigno — endless olive groves and vineyards — we can see the slopes of Vesuvius, the volcano itself in the distance and the Bay of Naples.

Immacolata, the housekeeper, still half-asleep and yawning, is putting on her dressing gown. A muffled intercom bell can be heard. She is anxious to prevent it waking the household. She moves an elaborate painting to reveal, in a niche, a bell and a speaking tube. She pushes the bell and speaks into the speaking tube.

Immacolata Right — OK.

She replaces the first picture and moves a second one, on another wall. Behind this is an old-fashioned telephone. She speaks into it to Catiello the watchman and caretaker.

Immacolata Catiello? You can open the gates.

She lights a lamp and goes out to one of the other rooms where we hear her knocking softly but urgently on a door. She comes back then disappears to a distant part of the house where the knocking process is repeated. Geraldina, youngest of Antonio’s children, comes on, in her dressing gown, trying to wake herself up. She is attractive, aristocratic and focused on the task in hand. She pins up her hair, takes a large white sheet out of a cupboard and from a drawer something which we will later recognise as a surgical gown. She spreads the sheet over the central table and the gown over a chair. Gennaro enters, unkempt, in his pyjamas. He’s twenty-three, elegant, handsome, half-asleep, not so well co-ordinated as his sister, Geraldina, but he knows what is required of him. He has done this so often that one feels he could carry out his tasks in his sleep. All three improvise ‘good mornings’ and other waking-up conversation. From a sideboard Gennaro takes a tin box of surgical instruments, a chromium machine for sterilising the instruments, a spirit burner, bottles of iodine, etc. Immacolata returns, bringing enamel basins, bandages, linen towels, cotton wool, etc. Conversation stops. Swiftly and with great precision all three convert the sitting room into an operating theatre. Kitchen chairs are brought to use as trestles. Two planks are used as an operating table over which the women spread a sheet. Gennaro brings a floor-standing, electric reading lamp which he positions over the operating table. Doctor Fabio Della Ragione enters in his dressing gown and pyjamas. He’s a likeable, intelligent cynic but at the moment he’s a little out of temper at having been woken so early — but his grumpiness is not directed at his three helpers whom he greets gruffly. He checks to see everything is in order. Immacolata helps him off with his dressing gown and on with his surgical gown, Geraldina pours surgical spirit into the basin. Gennaro puts the instruments into the basin. Immacolata ignites the spirit which flares up. The flames cast unearthly shadows on the walls of the room.

We begin to hear the muffled sounds of Nait and Catiello helping Palummiello down the corridor towards the room. Palummiello has been shot in the leg and is in great pain. He and Nait are young, petty criminals and the best of friends but Nait is responsible for the shooting. The harsh things to say to and about each other in the scene is at odds with their physical closeness, support and concern for each other. The audience should get the feeling that without each other either one would be helpless. Catiello is an unflappable old family retainer in late middle age. He’s seen it all before. The three men improvise grunts, cries of pain and words of encouragement over and above what is in the script.

Offstage.

Palummiello Ah! Jesus! … Jeez …

Catiello Hey! — Keep the noise down! Shhh! We’ve almost made it.

Palummiello Holy Mother of God … I just can’t … go another …

Nait You’re doing fine

Catiello C’mon, come on … Call yourself a man? Careful!

Palummiello I’ll have to stop — just give me a minute.

All three rest.

Catiello You don’t have a minute … I’m not your nurse. And you’re –

Nait He’ll get gangrene in it if he doesn’t hurry up –

Catiello keeping the doctor waiting –

Palummiello Oh Jesus … Jesus …

Painfully, they get him moving again.

Catiello Think about something else — anything. Concentrate –

They appear in the doorway.

Nait Try singing. Sing something –

Palummiello I don’t feel like singing — Ah! Jesus!

Finally they enter. Palummiello is placed on the operating table. The operation that is about to take place is conducted with the utmost skill and efficiency by all concerned. Nait holds Palummiello’s head and shoulders and supports him throughout. Immacolata closes the shutters of the French windows, Gennaro switches on the electric lamp. It’s dazzlingly bright — clearly now, not a reading lamp. Geraldina helps Fabio on with his rubber gloves. Immacolata goes out to the kitchen.

Fabio And you are?

Nait Nait. I shot him.

Fabio Syringe.

He indicates a phial. Geraldina loads the syringe.

Palummiello (screaming in pain) Ah! Holy Mother of God!

Fabio Try to moderate your screams. Don Antonio’s still asleep. (To Nait.) If it was you who shot him –

Nait I did shoot him, sir –

Fabio (accepts syringe from Geraldina) — why are you here?

Nait Well … Because … It’s a long story — I was at the end of via Marina around quarter to two — You know those crossroads? — there’s a right turn to San Giovanni a Teduccio, and if you take a left you’re on the motorway for Pompei –

Palummiello (screams) Ah! You’re killing me!

Fabio Lower his trousers, Gennaro.

Gennaro pulls down Palummiello’s trousers; Fabio skilfully administers the jab Palummiello flinches.

Fabio Give it a moment to work. Scissors, Geraldina.

Geraldina uses the scissors to cut off Palummiello’s trouser leg. An ugly wound is exposed. The flame in the basin begins to die down. Fabio picks up the probes and instruments he will need with forceps.

(To Nait.) Sorry. Go on.

Nait We were shooting at each other — He fired too. With … (Takes out a gun.) This is his.

He shows the gun around as if he wants somebody to take it off his hands.

Fabio (alert) Nobody touch it. Why are you trying to unload his gun on us? Keep it out of sight. Then what happened?

Nait puts the pistol back in his pocket.

Palummiello (through teeth clenched in pain) I was bleeding, in need of help … He knew I’d been hit — He just ran for it … Bastard!

Nait So I should have hung around and got myself arrested? I just started walking towards the station goods yard as if nothing had happened. Walking, walking, and in my head his yelling’s getting louder: ‘Help me! Somebody help me.’ Then — Mother of God! We’re friends aren’t we? In the end I found a taxi — headed back there at full speed — I took him in my arms, I hauled him on board and I carried him here.

Palummiello I took him for some innocent passer-by … That’s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Synopsis
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Imprint