Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de’ Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

Così è (se vi pare) by Luigi Pirandello, directed by Luca Ferrini with a company of 10 actors, plays at Teatro de' Servi, at Via del Mortaro 22 in Rome, from Tuesday, February 2 to Sunday, February 14, 2027. Performances are Tuesday to Friday at 21:00, Saturday at 17:30 and 21:00, and Sunday at 17:30. The ticket costs €25, according to the theater's official website. De' Servi is on a side street off Via del Tritone, about 100 meters from the Trevi Fountain, inside the limited traffic zone. The easiest way to get there is metro line A to Barberini, then a few minutes on foot downhill along Via del Tritone. Tickets are bought on the official website of Teatro de' Servi, which links to the authorized presale circuit, or by contacting the theater at 06 6795130. The show is presented by Alt Academy Produzioni.

Language: opera sung in its original language; no English surtitles are announced, so check with the theater.

Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi: dates, times and tickets

Così è (se vi pare) runs at Teatro de' Servi for two weeks, from February 2 to 14, 2027, with a €25 ticket and evening and afternoon performances.

The schedule

The theater lists these times. Tuesday to Friday at 21:00. On Saturday there are two performances, at 17:30 and 21:00. On Sunday at 17:30. The schedule has no performances on Monday. In all, it is two full weeks of performances, between February 2 and 14.

The price

The de' Servi website publishes a single price of €25. The theater also offers a newsletter sign-up that, according to the website, entitles you to a 20 percent discount: if you plan to go to the theater several times in the season, it's worth considering.

Where to buy

Tickets are bought online from the show's page on the Teatro de' Servi website, which links to the authorized presale circuit, or by contacting the theater at 06 6795130 or at info@teatroservi.it.

The company and the direction of Luca Ferrini

Così è (se vi pare) at de' Servi is directed by Luca Ferrini, who is also on stage, with Vittorio Carotenuto, Aurora Cataldi, Riccardo D'Alessandro, Alessandra De Pascalis, Antonia Di Francesco, Alessandro Moser, Veronica Stradella, Andrea Verticchio and Valeria Monetti.

A white set

The presentation of the show describes a white set inspired by an amphitheater, in which each character has their own place because they must and want to attend the spectacle of truth. It's a precise directorial idea: the provincial bourgeois who in Pirandello's text investigate other people's lives become spectators of a trial, and the audience in the hall ends up sitting next to them.

A modern acting style

The direction says it wants to highlight Pirandello's language, essential and incisive, made of tight dialogues that create a growing tension and, according to the presentation, exceptional comedy. The characters, the company writes, are freed from the Pirandellian mannerism that would risk mortifying their relevance today.

The spectator at the center

The stated goal is to give the work back a driving rhythm that puts the spectator at the center of the scene and traps them, together with the actors, in their own personal dilemma of the search for truth. Who is sane and who is mad, who is lying: these are the questions the direction sends back to the audience.

The plot of Così è (se vi pare): Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza

Così è (se vi pare) tells of the morbid curiosity of a group of bourgeois in a provincial town about the mystery surrounding a new clerk at the prefecture, Mr. Ponza, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Frola.

The mystery

Mr. Ponza arrives in town with his mother-in-law. It is said that they survived the Marsica earthquake, which would have killed a large part of their families, and that Ponza's wife also lives in town, though nobody has ever seen her. Ponza lives on the top floor of a tenement in the outskirts, Mrs. Frola in an elegant little apartment. The town's gossip makes him a monster who keeps his mother-in-law from seeing her daughter.

Two truths

Questioned, Mr. Ponza declares that his mother-in-law is mad: her daughter Lina, Ponza's first wife, would have died, and the woman would have convinced herself that the second wife, Giulia, is her daughter still alive. Shortly after, Mrs. Frola turns the accusation around: the mad one is him, who after a long hospitalization of his wife no longer recognized her and had to marry her again as if she were another woman. Those present no longer know what to think.

Laudisi and the truth

The only one who laughs at it all is Laudisi, brother-in-law of Councilor Agazzi, who defends the newcomers from the town's curiosity and maintains the impossibility of knowing others and of absolute truth. While the others look for documents that the earthquake destroyed, Laudisi claims equal reality for the phantom built by each person. The ending, which is not revealed here, takes the theme to its extreme consequences.

The history of the text: from short story to stage

Così è (se vi pare) is a play by Luigi Pirandello based on his short story La signora Frola e il signor Ponza, suo genero, first performed in Milan on June 18, 1917.

The Marsica earthquake

The text refers several times to the Marsica earthquake, which really happened in 1915, in which all of Mrs. Frola's relatives would have died and her town would have been razed to the ground. The quake is not a detail of local color: it is the event that destroys the archives and makes any documentary proof impossible, and so the engine of the whole story.

Two editions

Pirandello told his son Stefano that he had finished the play two months before the 1917 debut. In 1925 he presented a new enriched edition, adapted to stage performance and almost completely modified. The text is in three acts and six scenes.

The theme

The play develops one of Pirandello's favorite themes, the unknowability of reality, of which everyone gives their own subjective interpretation, and even its irrelevance, as the ending reveals. The pretext is a basically marginal matter, the private life of a family. The target is the claim to know everything about others.

Luigi Pirandello, the author

Luigi Pirandello, born in Girgenti, today's Agrigento, on June 28, 1867 and died in Rome on December 10, 1936, was a playwright, writer and poet, Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1934, considered among the most important playwrights of the twentieth century.

The origins

He was born in Contrada Càvusu, where his father Stefano had moved the family to escape a cholera epidemic. The family, of Risorgimento traditions, lived comfortably thanks to trade and sulfur extraction, and his father had taken part in Garibaldi's campaigns.

The work

Pirandello wrote short stories and tales, in Italian and in Sicilian, and about 40 plays, the last of which was left unfinished. Così è (se vi pare), from 1917, is one of the texts in which his theater questions the very possibility of a shared truth.

Pirandello in Rome

Rome is the city where Pirandello died, on December 10, 1936. The Roman place tied to his memory is Studio Pirandello, Luigi Pirandello House Museum, a visit to pair with the show for those who want to enter the author's world.

Why see Così è (se vi pare) today

Così è (se vi pare) is about gossip, morbid curiosity and truths built out of chatter: themes that, in the age of social networks, sound more current than when they were written.

The town square

The group of bourgeois who question Mr. Ponza and Mrs. Frola is a community that claims to know everything about others and turns private life into spectacle. In our view it is impossible today not to recognize in that province the virtual square where everyone judges without knowing.

A comedy, not just a classic to study

De' Servi presents the show as a comedy, and the direction bets on the humor of the dialogues. For those who remember Pirandello as school reading, it's a chance to discover that his theater can make you laugh, and that the deepest meaning of the text hides in Laudisi's laughter.

Teatro de' Servi: a hall in a convent garden

Teatro de' Servi is a hall in the Trevi district, built in 1950 in the large vegetable and flower garden of the convent next to the parish of Santa Maria in Via, between Via del Tritone and the Trevi Fountain.

The debut with Eduardo

The theater was inaugurated on April 26, 1957 by Eduardo De Filippo's company, with the world premiere of De Pretore Vincenzo: directed by Eduardo, sets by Titina De Filippo, music by Renzo Rossellini, main performers Achille Millo and Valeria Moricone, in her theater debut.

A censored comedy

According to the history published by the theater, after the premiere the Vicariate stepped in and imposed censorship of the show, amid great controversy in the city: the hall stayed closed for a few months.

Closures and reopenings

Until the end of the 1970s de' Servi was a reference point for the Roman public. In the 1980s new safety rules required works: at the end of the 1983 season the theater closed for a year, reopened in 1984 with 252 seats, closed again in 1988 and resumed activity at the beginning of 1990. Since July 2002 it has been managed by the company La Bilancia.

Its vocation today

For more than 10 years de' Servi has built its seasons on Italian comedies by living authors, alongside musical shows and its own productions. A classic like Pirandello, presented as a comedy, is an exception that speaks to this vocation: the program has included in autumn titles such as Se ti sposo mi rovino and Niente progetti per il futuro.

How to get to Teatro de' Servi for Così è (se vi pare)

Teatro de' Servi is at Via del Mortaro 22, a side street off Via del Tritone a couple of steps from the Trevi Fountain. It is in the historic center, inside the ZTL, and the easiest way to get there is metro line A to Barberini.

By metro

From the Barberini stop, on line A, you walk down Via del Tritone for a few minutes and turn toward Via del Mortaro. On the way there it's a pleasant downhill stretch. On the way back, after the evening performances, a short climb.

By bus

Via del Tritone is one of the main axes of surface transport in the center, and the lines that run along it stop a few steps from the theater. If you arrive from Piazza Venezia, you can go up Via del Corso to Piazza Colonna and reach the theater on foot in five minutes.

By car

De' Servi is inside the limited traffic zone. If you come by car, check the gate hours and leave the car in a garage outside the ZTL, then continue on foot or by metro. For evening performances a taxi is the simplest solution.

A curiosity about Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

The most interesting curiosity concerns the relationship between this text and the theater that hosts it. Teatro de' Servi was born, in 1957, with a world premiere by Eduardo De Filippo, De Pretore Vincenzo, which right after the debut was censored by the Vicariate, with the hall closed for a few months amid controversy in the city. A theater built in a convent garden that debuts with a comedy stopped by the authorities is a story that looks a lot like a Pirandellian plot: who was right, the artists or the censors, depended on the point of view. Così è (se vi pare), with its group of right-thinking people who want to establish at all costs the truth about other people's lives, finds in this hall an almost ironic frame. The second curiosity concerns the earthquake. The 1915 Marsica quake, which in the play destroys the archives and makes any proof impossible, had happened just two years before the 1917 premiere. The playwright used a real tragedy as a theatrical mechanism, and made it the reason why nobody will ever be able to know who is telling the truth. The third curiosity is about the cast: Luca Ferrini is credited with the direction and is also on stage, in a company of 10 actors, large for a hall of this size.

One thing nobody tells you about Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

What the presentations don't say is that Così è (se vi pare) is enjoyed more without knowing how it ends. The text is famous, but in our view its ending is less known than its title, and many people arrive in the hall remembering only the title and the theme of relative truth. My advice is to avoid complete summaries and let the mechanism of the investigation do its work: the structure is that of a mystery, with witnesses, interrogations and proof that is missing. The second thing concerns the register. The company's presentation insists on comedy and rhythm, and de' Servi places the show in the comedy category: anyone expecting a gloomy, cerebral Pirandello may be surprised at how much there is to laugh at, especially in the choral scenes of the curious bourgeois. The third thing concerns the calendar: the two weeks of performances include the Valentine's Day weekend, February 13 and 14. For those thinking of a couple's evening out of the ordinary there is an alternative here: a text about marriages, about wives who perhaps don't exist and about loves nobody manages to decipher. For those dates it's best to book in advance.

My advice for visiting Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

My advice is to take advantage of the theater's position, 100 meters from the Trevi Fountain, to build a whole evening in the Trevi district. If you choose the Saturday or Sunday performance at 17:30, you can devote the early afternoon to Studio Pirandello, the writer's house museum, and then go to the center for the show: a route that brings the author and his work together in the same day. If you choose the evening performances at 21:00, you can arrive early and take a walk among the Trevi Fountain, Galleria Sciarra and Piazza Colonna, all a few minutes on foot. The second piece of advice concerns choosing the performance: in our view the weeknight evenings of the first week are the quietest, while Saturday at 21:00 and the Valentine's Day days are the most in demand. The third concerns preparation: rereading the short story La signora Frola e il signor Ponza, suo genero helps you see how Pirandello turned a tale into a theatrical mechanism, without giving away the ending of the play.

Around Teatro de' Servi: what to see a few steps away

Around Teatro de' Servi, within five minutes on foot, you'll find the Trevi Fountain, Galleria Alberto Sordi, Galleria Sciarra, Piazza Colonna and the Quirinal.

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is about 100 meters from the theater. In the evening it is lit and still busy. After 23:00 the crowd thins out and you can look at the basin calmly.

The galleries

Galleria Alberto Sordi connects Via del Tritone and Piazza Colonna with its glass and iron roof. Galleria Sciarra is a covered courtyard decorated with late nineteenth-century paintings devoted to the female figure.

The Quirinal and Piazza di Spagna

Uphill you reach the Quirinal Palace, with its view over the city. A little farther is Piazza di Spagna. In the same area there is also Teatro Quirino Vittorio Gassman, one of the great drama theaters of the center.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

It is well known that Luigi Pirandello won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1934. It is less often remembered that his theater came in large part from his short stories. Così è (se vi pare) is the clearest example: the play derives from the short story La signora Frola e il signor Ponza, suo genero, and the author turned it into a stage text in a few months, telling his son Stefano that he had finished it two months before the Milan premiere of June 18, 1917. Eight years later, in 1925, Pirandello returned to the text and presented a new enriched edition, almost completely modified to adapt it to the stage. The Così è (se vi pare) seen today is therefore the fruit of a rewriting that lasted almost a decade, in which the writer became a man of the theater. Another little-cited fact concerns the character of Laudisi: he is the critical conscience of the group, and in one of the most famous scenes he talks with his own image reflected in the mirror. It is the moment when the question about other people's truth turns back on one's own truth, and in our view it is perhaps the scene that most anticipates the Pirandello of Six Characters in Search of an Author.

The right photo to take at Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

You don't take photos in the hall during the show: it disturbs the actors, it disturbs your neighbors, and in a comedy with tight timing a lit screen in the stalls is noticed right away. The right photo is taken outside. The first is at the theater's entrance, on Via del Mortaro, in front of the poster with the framed portrait of Pirandello: a simple keepsake that says where and when. The second is in Galleria Sciarra, a few steps away, raising the lens toward the painted walls: in an evening devoted to a text about the multiplication of identities, the female figures repeated on the walls are a curious echo of Mrs. Ponza whom nobody manages to see. The third is the Trevi Fountain at night, after the 21:00 performance. At that hour the crowd thins and all you need is to wait for a gap to open in front of the basin: under artificial light the travertine takes on a warm color it doesn't have by day. If you like images with a theme, you can look for a reflection: in the fountain's basin, as in Laudisi's mirror, the city doubles. No flash, which flattens the water and annoys the people around you.

Some important events that happened here in history

The history of Teatro de' Servi begins in 1950, when the building is built in the large vegetable and flower garden of the convent next to the parish of Santa Maria in Via, in the Trevi district. On April 26, 1957 Eduardo De Filippo's company inaugurates the hall with the world premiere of De Pretore Vincenzo, performed by Achille Millo and Valeria Moricone. Right after, the Vicariate imposes censorship of the show, amid great controversy in the city, and the theater stays closed for a few months. In the following years, until the end of the 1970s, de' Servi becomes a reference point for the Roman public, with Italian and foreign companies, concerts and chamber opera. The 1980s bring new safety rules for entertainment venues: at the end of the 1983 season the hall closes for a year, reopens in 1984 with 252 seats, closes again in 1988 and resumes activity at the beginning of 1990. In July 2002 management passes to the company La Bilancia, which renovates the systems and spaces, also with the set designer and architect Massimo Marafante, and builds a program based on Italian comedies by living authors. In February 2027 the stage welcomes Pirandello, a twentieth-century classic read as a comedy.

Who has come through Così è (se vi pare) at Teatro de' Servi, February 2 to 14, 2027

From the stage of de' Servi, according to the history published by the theater, have passed names that tell half a century of Roman entertainment. Besides Eduardo De Filippo and his company, with Titina De Filippo on sets, Achille Millo and Valeria Moricone, Italian actors such as Aldo Giuffrè, Fiorenzo Fiorentini, Silvio Spaccesi, Giusi Raspani Dandolo, Carlo Tamberlani, Jole Fierro and Walter Maestosi, foreign actors such as Robert Alda and Eva Bartok, and directors such as Mario Landi, Luciano Lucignani and Renzo Giacchieri. On the musical side, conductors such as Massimo Pradella and Renzo Rossellini, opera singers such as Katia Ricciarelli, Giuseppe Sabatini and Pietro Spagnoli, groups such as I Solisti Romani of Massimo Coen and Società del Quartetto, and also Eduardo Bennato and the Momix. In February 2027 come Luca Ferrini and his company: Vittorio Carotenuto, Aurora Cataldi, Riccardo D'Alessandro, Alessandra De Pascalis, Antonia Di Francesco, Alessandro Moser, Veronica Stradella, Andrea Verticchio and Valeria Monetti. And ideally comes Luigi Pirandello, who died in Rome in 1936: a Sicilian Nobel winner in a theater inaugurated by Eduardo.

Which performance of Così è (se vi pare) to choose

With 14 days on the calendar and three different time slots, Così è (se vi pare) at de' Servi lets you choose the performance according to the kind of evening you want to spend in the center of Rome.

Weeknight evenings

Tuesday to Friday at 21:00 the hall is mostly filled with Romans coming from work. Dinner is after, and the center at that hour is quieter.

Saturday

Saturday has two performances, at 17:30 and 21:00. The afternoon one leaves the evening free, the evening one is the most in demand: for Saturday, February 13, the eve of Valentine's Day, it's best to book early.

Sunday

Sunday at 17:30 is the most convenient choice for families with teenagers and for those who come from outside Rome and want to head home in the evening.

Where to eat near Teatro de' Servi

The Trevi area is full of restaurants geared to passing tourism, with high prices and variable quality: for a dinner before or after the show it's best to move a few streets away, toward the streets below the Quirinal or toward the Pantheon.

Before or after

With the 21:00 performance dinner comes after, the Roman way: book at a place that accepts guests after 23:00. With the 17:30 performances on Saturday and Sunday you come out at dinner time, and the center offers many possibilities.

A coffee or a gelato

Between the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon there are historic cafés and gelaterias. A stop at the counter before the show, as Romans do, costs less and lasts just long enough.

Accessibility and practical information

Teatro de' Servi is a mid-sized hall, renovated several times to bring it up to safety rules. For information on accessibility for people with limited mobility and on reserved seats, contact the theater before buying, at 06 6795130 or at info@teatroservi.it.

With teenagers

Così è (se vi pare) is a classic of Pirandello's theater, and a staging with a comedy rhythm is a good way to bring high school students closer to twentieth-century theater. The de' Servi website also has a section devoted to schools. For small children the text, made of tight dialogues and an investigation carried out entirely in words, is not very suitable.

February in Rome

In early February Roman evenings are cold: a heavy jacket is necessary, especially for the walk after the 21:00 performance. It is a low-season period, with fewer tourists even around the Trevi Fountain, except for the Valentine's Day weekend.

Frequently asked questions about Così è (se vi pare)

When is Così è (se vi pare) on at Teatro de' Servi?

Così è (se vi pare) plays at Teatro de' Servi in Rome from February 2 to 14, 2027. Performances are Tuesday to Friday at 21:00, Saturday at 17:30 and 21:00, Sunday at 17:30.

How much is a ticket for Così è (se vi pare)?

For Così è (se vi pare) Teatro de' Servi publishes a price of €25. Tickets are bought from the theater's official website, which links to the authorized presale circuit, or by contacting the theater at 06 6795130.

Who is in Così è (se vi pare) at de' Servi?

The cast of Così è (se vi pare) at de' Servi is Vittorio Carotenuto, Aurora Cataldi, Riccardo D'Alessandro, Alessandra De Pascalis, Antonia Di Francesco, Luca Ferrini, Alessandro Moser, Veronica Stradella, Andrea Verticchio and Valeria Monetti. The director is Luca Ferrini, for Alt Academy Produzioni.

What is Pirandello's Così è (se vi pare) about?

Così è (se vi pare) tells of the curiosity of a group of provincial bourgeois about the mystery of Mr. Ponza and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Frola, who accuse each other of being mad. The play stages the impossibility of knowing an objective truth.

When was Così è (se vi pare) written?

Così è (se vi pare) was first performed in Milan on June 18, 1917, based on Pirandello's short story La signora Frola e il signor Ponza, suo genero. In 1925 the author presented a new, almost completely modified edition.

Where is Teatro de' Servi?

Teatro de' Servi is at Via del Mortaro 22, a side street off Via del Tritone about 100 meters from the Trevi Fountain. The nearest metro stop is Barberini, on line A.

Is the show suitable for teenagers?

Così è (se vi pare) at de' Servi suits high school students, especially those studying Pirandello: the direction bets on rhythm and on the humor of the dialogues. The Saturday and Sunday performances at 17:30 are the most convenient.

Final advice on Così è (se vi pare)

Così è (se vi pare) is one of those classics that almost everyone knows by name and few have seen in the theater. This staging, with a large company, a white amphitheater set and an openly comic approach, promises to give the text back its nature as a theatrical mechanism, before it is a philosophical reflection. In our view it's a good choice for those who want an accessible Pirandello, for teenagers who study him and for anyone looking for an evening in the center of Rome different from the usual comedy. My advice is to pick one of the weeknight evenings of the first week, avoid reading the ending, arrive early for a walk between Trevi and Piazza Colonna and, if possible, pair the show with a visit to Studio Pirandello. The €25 ticket, for an evening of theater 100 meters from the Trevi Fountain, is an honest price.

Article written by the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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