Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

Ispettore in casa Birling, the classic by John Boynton Priestley in the translation by Masolino D'Amico and directed by Piero Maccarinelli, is at Teatro Quirino Vittorio Gassman from March 2 to 7, 2027, at Via delle Vergini 7 (00187 Rome), with Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago. It is presented by La Pirandelliana. Performances are on Tuesday, March 2, Wednesday, March 3 and Friday, March 5 at 21:00, and on Thursday, March 4, Saturday, March 6 and Sunday, March 7 at 17:00. Prices are published by the theater on the authorized presale network, reached from the purchase button on the official page. The remote ticket office of Quirino answers at 06 6794585, Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 13:00 and from 14:00 to 18:00. The theater, in the Trevi district between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain, can be reached on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops of metro line A.

Language: performed in Italian. No English version or English surtitles are announced.

The play, written in 1945 and staged in Moscow the same year, is today a classic of English theater. Quirino presents it as a play with the feel of a mystery, full of suspense: a well-off family celebrates an engagement, someone knocks at the door, and a police inspector starts asking questions. It is an interrogation that lasts a whole night, with a series of plot twists that change the name of the suspect each time, until the first light of dawn.

Ispettore in casa Birling at Quirino: dates, times and tickets

Ispettore in casa Birling is at Teatro Quirino from March 2 to 7, 2027, for six performances: three evening shows at 21:00 and three afternoon shows at 17:00.

The schedule

Tuesday, March 2 at 21:00. Wednesday, March 3 at 21:00. Thursday, March 4 at 17:00. Friday, March 5 at 21:00. Saturday, March 6 at 17:00. Sunday, March 7 at 17:00.

The afternoon shows

Half of the performances are in the afternoon, Thursday's included: a choice that suits audiences who prefer not to get home late, and travelers in Rome who want their evening free.

Tickets

They are bought from the purchase button on the official show page on the Quirino website, linked to the authorized presale network, or through the theater's remote ticket office for reservations, date changes and phone purchases. Prices are not shown on the show page.

Who presents it

The show is presented by La Pirandelliana, with Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago in the leading roles.

Un ispettore in casa Birling: the plot without giving away the ending

Un ispettore in casa Birling is set in England in 1912, over a single night, in the drawing room of a family of industrialists celebrating their daughter's engagement to a young industrialist.

The party

Elegant clothes, vintage wines, an engagement that joins two business families: everything runs smoothly, Quirino writes, until someone knocks at the door.

The inspector

A police inspector has to ask the head of the family a few questions. The policeman throws the evening, the family, the business, the engagement and everything else into crisis. The violent death of a young woman hangs over the story.

The interrogation

The investigation spares no one. Each member of the family, in turn, turns out to be tied to the young woman, and each plot twist moves suspicion to another name.

The drawing room

All the action takes place in the drawing room of the house, following the model of the drawing-room theater that was very popular between the 1800s and the 1900s: a closed place where bourgeois conventions are taken apart one by one.

The ending

The ending is one of the most famous in 20th-century English theater, and it should not be told: the uproar, Quirino says, ends only at the first light of dawn.

John Boynton Priestley, the author

John Boynton Priestley, born in Bradford on September 13, 1894 and died in 1984 near Stratford-upon-Avon, was an English novelist and playwright. Un ispettore in casa Birling is one of his best-known works.

The novelist

He gained fame with the novel The Good Companions, from 1929, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and also became a play in 1931. Angel Pavement followed, among others, and, much later, The Magicians.

The playwright

His dramas, often inspired by a socialist ideal, experiment with new techniques: in Dangerous Corner and I Have Been Here Before the time sequence is thrown into disorder. Other titles include Time and the Conways and They Came to a City.

A rediscovered classic

At the end of the 20th century Un ispettore in casa Birling enjoyed a new great success thanks to an acclaimed London revival directed by Stephen Daldry, which made critics and English-speaking audiences rediscover Priestley.

A critique of hypocrisy

Critics consider the play an attack on the hypocrisy of Victorian and Edwardian society and a manifesto of the author's socialist convictions: the theme is each person's responsibility toward others.

Masolino D'Amico and Piero Maccarinelli

The version on stage at Quirino is the rewrite by Masolino D'Amico, a Roman scholar of English literature and translator, directed by Piero Maccarinelli, a director from Brescia who lives and works in Rome.

Masolino D'Amico

Born in Rome in 1939, son of the screenwriter Suso Cecchi D'Amico and the musicologist Fedele D'Amico, and grandson of Silvio D'Amico, he graduated under Mario Praz and was full professor of English Literature at Roma Tre. He has translated Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Alan Ayckbourn and Edward Albee. Since 1989 he has written the theater reviews for La Stampa. In 2000 he won the Premio Flaiano for theater criticism.

Piero Maccarinelli

Born in Brescia in 1957, with a diploma in directing from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in 1979, he was assistant to Maurizio Scaparro and assistant director to Ermanno Olmi. In 2004 he founded Artisti Riuniti in Rome. With Walter Veltroni and Maria Ida Gaeta he created the Festival Letterature at Basilica di Massenzio, for which he was director from 2002 to 2008. From 2021 he was artistic director of Teatro Parioli for three seasons.

His actors

In his career he has directed, among others, Umberto Orsini, Valeria Moriconi, Mariangela Melato, Stefania Sandrelli and Michele Placido. In 2023 the President of the Republic named him Commander of the Order of Merit.

Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago

The three leads of Ispettore in casa Birling come from different paths: popular television for Ettore Bassi, the theater of Luca Ronconi for Galatea Ranzi, more than 50 years on stage for Stefano Santospago.

Ettore Bassi

Born in Bari in 1970, trained at the Tangram school in Turin and in the workshops of Beatrice Bracco and Michael Margotta, he became known as Marshal Andrea Ferri in the series Carabinieri, from 2002 to 2005. He was Commissioner Rivera in Rex and Saint Francis in Chiara e Francesco. On stage he won the Premio Charlot in 2015 for Trappola mortale and played Angelo Vassallo in the monologue Il sindaco pescatore. In 2019 he came second on Ballando con le stelle.

Galatea Ranzi

A Roman, with a diploma from the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art in 1988, she has worked in many productions by Luca Ronconi, from Strano interludio to Re Lear. Winner of the Ubu Prize as best young actress in 1988 and of the Eleonora Duse Prize in 2012, she was in the cast of Paolo Sorrentino's La grande bellezza.

Stefano Santospago

A Roman, born in 1954, he has worked with Vittorio Gassman, Pietro Garinei, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Massimo Castri, Luca Ronconi and Cesare Lievi, and in 10 productions at the Greek theater of Syracuse. In film he was in Ricordati di me by Muccino and Cuore sacro by Özpetek. On television he was in Suburra. In the 1980s he hosted the first edition of Buona Domenica.

The leads of Ispettore in casa Birling on stage

Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago come to Ispettore in casa Birling with very different theater experiences, from musical to Greek tragedy, from director's theater to comedy.

Bassi between musical and civic commitment

Ettore Bassi acted in Il muro, a small rock opera inspired by Pink Floyd written and directed by Angelo Longoni, and in L'amore migliora la vita by Longoni himself. In 2017 he was Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard, the musical, in the role played in the film by Kevin Costner. Il sindaco pescatore, directed by Enrico Maria Lamanna, saw him in the role of Angelo Vassallo.

Ranzi from Ronconi to Zeller

Galatea Ranzi grew up with Luca Ronconi: Alfieri's Mirra in 1988, Kraus's Gli ultimi giorni dell'umanità, I fratelli Karamazov, Pirandello's Questa sera si recita a soggetto, Anna Maria Ortese's Mistero doloroso in 2012. At the Greek theater of Syracuse she was in Antigone directed by Irene Papas and in the Orestiade translated by Pasolini. More recently she has worked with Florian Zeller, in Un'ora di tranquillità directed by Massimo Ghini and in Il figlio directed by Maccarinelli.

Santospago, 50 years of theater

Stefano Santospago made his debut in the mid-1970s at the center Il Politecnico, with Giorgio Pressburger. He has worked many times with Mario Missiroli, with Massimo Castri in Pasolini's Orgia, with Luca Ronconi in Infinities, with Marco Sciaccaluga, who wanted him as Trigorin in The Seagull. With Daniele Salvo he was Gaddafi in L'ultima notte del Rais. He was also in the cast of Anna Karenina directed by Luca de Fusco.

A meeting of schools

In our view the strength of the company is exactly this variety: the stage presence and popularity of Bassi, the Ronconi-style rigor of Ranzi, the experience of Santospago. A play built on an interrogation calls for actors who can hold up in direct confrontation, scene after scene.

Drawing-room theater and the mystery

Un ispettore in casa Birling is built on the model of drawing-room theater, as the English tradition calls it, a genre very popular in the late 1800s in which all the action takes place in the drawing room of a bourgeois home.

A closed space

One room, one night: the classical unities of place and time make the tension stronger. Nobody can leave, everybody has to answer.

The mystery as a pretext

The structure of the investigation, with an inspector who questions the suspects one after another, is that of the classic mystery. But the real object of the inquiry, in our view, is not a culprit: it is the conscience of a family and of a social class.

The direction

Quirino speaks of a surreal uproar: Maccarinelli's direction seems to aim at the rhythm of the plot twists more than at realism. How the stage is solved is not described on the official page.

Why 1912

The choice of the year is not accidental: the Birling family celebrates in a world that seems solid and that two years later will be swept away by war. Anyone watching the play knows what the characters do not, and this, in our view, gives every optimistic line of the head of the family a bitter sound.

A curiosity about Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

The most surprising curiosity concerns the premiere. A classic of English theater, written by an author born in Bradford, did not debut in London but in Moscow, in 1945. Only afterward did it reach the theaters of London and New York, and then Italy. A play about collective responsibility, by an author of socialist ideas, found its first audience in the Soviet Union of the immediate postwar period.

The second curiosity concerns the translator. Masolino D'Amico is the grandson of Silvio D'Amico, the critic after whom the National Academy of Dramatic Art is named, where Galatea Ranzi earned her diploma in 1988. The translation and the lead actress come, in a certain sense, from the same house: in our view it is a detail that says a lot about the continuity of Roman theater.

The third concerns Priestley and Graham Greene. In the early 1930s, at the height of his success, Priestley became convinced that Greene had caricatured him in a character of the novel Il treno d'Istanbul, and threatened legal action: Greene had to rewrite the book. An author able to play the inspector in real life too.

Teatro Quirino Vittorio Gassman, the venue of the show

Teatro Quirino is a horseshoe-shaped hall with two balconies and a gallery, with 852 seats, in the Trevi district. Since 2015 it has been run by Quirino srl with Guglielmo Ferro as artistic director.

A wooden theater

The first Quirino was wanted in 1871 by Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, within the property of Palazzo Sciarra, with an entrance from Via del Corso. Designed by Giulio De Angelis with Francesco Marra, it was built entirely of wood and, according to tradition, was assembled in a single day. The name recalls the Quirinale and the god Quirinus.

The reconstruction

In 1882 the opening of a street between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain forced it to be taken down. De Angelis rebuilt it in masonry a few meters farther on, in a horseshoe shape, with neoclassical cast-iron columns.

Piacentini

In 1914 Marcello Piacentini added a third tier of boxes and a retractable roof. In 1954 he returned to the theater with cantilevered tiers and the canopy that can still be seen over the entrance.

Something nobody tells you about Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

What is rarely said is that Piero Maccarinelli is at home at Quirino. His directing record includes D'Annunzio's La fiaccola sotto il moggio, in the adaptation by Annibale Ruccello, which debuted at Quirino on November 5, 1986. Vita col padre, on November 16, 1994. La partitella by Giuseppe Manfridi, on April 30, 1996. Ispettore in casa Birling brings him back to Via delle Vergini more than 40 years after the first time.

The second thing concerns the team. Maccarinelli has already directed Galatea Ranzi in 2023 in Il figlio by Florian Zeller, and Stefano Santospago in Goldoni's La Casa Nova, which earned the actor a place among the three finalists of the Premio Le Maschere del Teatro, and in 2025 in Il caso Kaufmann by Giovanni Grasso. It is not a company put together for the occasion, but a well-run-in team.

The third thing concerns Ettore Bassi. Television audiences know him as a marshal and a commissioner. Here he is in a mystery play in which a policeman is the engine of the story. In our view the play of mirrors with his best-known roles is one of the hidden pleasures of the show.

How to get to Teatro Quirino

Teatro Quirino, at Via delle Vergini 7, is in the Trevi district between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain. It can be reached on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops of metro line A.

By metro

From the Barberini stop you go down Via del Tritone toward Via del Corso and turn into the small streets of the district until Via delle Vergini. From Spagna the route is longer, but it passes through some of the most beautiful streets in the center.

By bus

Many lines run along Via del Tritone and Via del Corso: the Atac route planner shows the fastest combination in real time.

By car and taxi

The historic center is a limited traffic zone: the car has to be left outside the ZTL. For a matinee with older people, a taxi to the start of Via delle Vergini is the most convenient choice.

The tip I give you for visiting Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

My tip is not to read the full plot before you go. Un ispettore in casa Birling works like a mystery: the pleasure is in discovering, question after question, each character's link to the young woman. Anyone who already knows the ending will enjoy seeing it again, and anyone who does not should not have it told to them.

The second tip concerns the performance. With three matinees out of six, Thursday's at 17:00 included, Quirino offers a rare chance for those who do not like going out in the evening: a weekday matinee, less crowded than the weekend ones. For travelers, it leaves the evening free for a dinner in the center.

The third concerns the ticket. Quirino has an orchestra, two balconies and a gallery: for a play of words and looks, in our view, the orchestra or the first central balcony is the best choice. The remote ticket office helps choose the right section for anyone with special needs.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

It is well known that Un ispettore in casa Birling is a mystery. It is mentioned less that the original English title, An Inspector Calls, does not name the family: it only says that an inspector pays a visit. The Italian title shifts the emphasis to the house, to the bourgeois drawing room where everything happens, and in our view it conveys well the idea of an intrusion into private life.

The second rarely mentioned fact concerns the setting. The play was written in 1945, at the end of the Second World War, but it is set in 1912, on the eve of the First. Priestley looks back more than 30 years to speak to his own present: a family sure of its own prosperity that does not see the catastrophe coming.

The third concerns the translators. Masolino D'Amico has translated for the theater mostly English-language authors of the 20th century, from Tennessee Williams to Arthur Miller, from Alan Ayckbourn to Ronald Harwood and Edward Albee. Priestley joins a gallery of authors that Italian audiences know in large part through his words.

The right photo to take at Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

During the show your phone stays off. The right photo is taken before, on Via delle Vergini, at Piacentini's canopy over the entrance: one of the few traces visible from the outside of the theater's transformations in the 20th century.

The second is taken a few steps away, at the Trevi Fountain. For those going to the 17:00 matinee in early March, the late-afternoon light on the fountain is the best. On the way out of the evening shows, the illuminated fountain is more crowded but spectacular.

The third, in keeping with the show, is a detail: a door. The play begins when someone knocks. A photo of one of the district's big doors, with its knocker, is the most fitting souvenir of the evening.

The Trevi district around Quirino

Via delle Vergini is in the Trevi district, a few steps from the Trevi Fountain and from Via del Corso, under the Quirinal hill that gives the theater its name.

The Quirinale

Climbing up from the district you reach the Quirinal Palace and the Scuderie del Quirinale, home to major exhibitions: a morning visit and the matinee at the theater make a full day.

Piazza Colonna

Along Via del Corso you reach Piazza Colonna and the Galleria Alberto Sordi, useful on rainy days.

Sala Umberto

10 minutes away on foot is Teatro Sala Umberto, where in the same days Marco Bocci and Pia Lanciotti stage their tribute to Charles Bukowski: anyone staying in Rome a few days can build a small theater week without taking any transport.

Some important events that happened here in history

The history of Teatro Quirino runs through more than 150 years of Rome as the capital. In 1871 Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra had a wooden theater built on the property of Palazzo Sciarra, to a design by Giulio De Angelis and Francesco Marra. The repertoire is popular, pulcinellate and operettas.

In 1882 the theater was taken down to open a street between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain and rebuilt in masonry a few meters farther on. In 1898 the interiors were decorated with drapes, velvets and gilded stucco, and the repertoire opened to opera and ballet: in June 1899 the maestro Antonino Palminteri conducted Verdi's I Lombardi and Puccini's Manon Lescaut there.

In 1914 Marcello Piacentini added the third tier of boxes and the retractable roof. From 1946 the theater was run by the Ente Teatrale Italiano. In 1954 Piacentini returned with a radical intervention, and the theater reopened on October 13, 1955 with 990 seats. In 2009 management passed to the Gitiesse Artisti Riuniti of Geppy Gleijeses, in 2015 to Quirino srl. In between, on November 5, 1986, came the debut of La fiaccola sotto il moggio directed by a young Piero Maccarinelli.

Who has passed through Ispettore in casa Birling with Ettore Bassi and Galatea Ranzi at Teatro Quirino, March 2 to 7, 2027

Through Teatro Quirino passed first of all the men who built and transformed it: Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, Giulio De Angelis, Marcello Piacentini. On the podium, in June 1899, stood Antonino Palminteri. Today the theater carries, beside its historic name, that of Vittorio Gassman, with whom Stefano Santospago worked in Ulisse e la balena bianca, from Moby Dick.

In the same season Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore and Il viaggio di Francesco also pass through Quirino. Piero Maccarinelli had been there as a director in 1986, in 1994 and in 1996.

From March 2 to 7, 2027, Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago pass through Via delle Vergini, with the company of La Pirandelliana. And with them, in the fiction, the whole Birling family, the young fiancé, and an inspector who knocks at the door one evening in 1912: the character who, in our view, stays with the audience longer than anyone.

Who to go with to see Ispettore in casa Birling

Ispettore in casa Birling is a mystery play suited to a wide audience: those who love classic mysteries, those who love English theater, those who follow television actors.

With teenagers

For high school students it is an excellent introduction to 20th-century theater: a mystery that is easy to follow and that opens discussions about responsibility and social differences. The death of a young woman is the center of the story: for children it is not the right show.

As a couple or with friends

A mystery at the theater is the ideal show to discuss afterward, over dinner: who had figured it out, who had not, who suspected whom.

Accessibility at Teatro Quirino

For the conditions of access to the hall for people with disabilities and the dedicated seats, the reference is the ticket office of Teatro Quirino, at the contacts published on the official website, which also has a page dedicated to accessibility.

Before booking

Quirino is a historic theater, remodeled several times: it pays to ask which sections can be reached without stairs before choosing a seat.

Getting there

The small streets of the Trevi district are paved with sampietrini and often crowded: for anyone who has difficulty getting around, a taxi to the entrance is the safest choice.

Where to eat near Teatro Quirino

The Trevi district is full of restaurants, but many are designed for the tourists who crowd around the fountain: to eat well before or after the show it pays to move a few streets away.

Before the matinee

For a light lunch before 17:00, the streets between Via del Corso and the Pantheon offer trattorias and bakeries. It is better to avoid places with the menu photographed in the window on the most crowded piazzas.

After the evening show

After the 21:00 performance dinner becomes a post-theater meal: the Pantheon area, 10 minutes away on foot, stays lively until late even on weekdays.

Frequently asked questions about Ispettore in casa Birling at Quirino

When is Ispettore in casa Birling playing in Rome?

Ispettore in casa Birling is at Teatro Quirino in Rome from March 2 to 7, 2027: Tuesday, March 2, Wednesday, March 3 and Friday, March 5 at 21:00, Thursday, March 4, Saturday, March 6 and Sunday, March 7 at 17:00, at Via delle Vergini 7.

Who are the actors in Ispettore in casa Birling?

The leads of Ispettore in casa Birling at Quirino are Ettore Bassi, Galatea Ranzi and Stefano Santospago. The translation is by Masolino D'Amico, the direction by Piero Maccarinelli. The show is presented by La Pirandelliana.

Who wrote Un ispettore in casa Birling?

Un ispettore in casa Birling was written by the English playwright John Boynton Priestley in 1945 and staged for the first time in Moscow the same year. The original title is An Inspector Calls. In Italy the play comes to Quirino in the rewrite by Masolino D'Amico, directed by Piero Maccarinelli.

What is Ispettore in casa Birling about?

Ispettore in casa Birling tells of a night in 1912 in which a police inspector interrupts the engagement party of a family of industrialists and, with a long interrogation, reveals each person's link to the death of a young woman.

How much do tickets for Ispettore in casa Birling at Quirino cost?

Prices for Ispettore in casa Birling at Teatro Quirino are not shown on the show page: you see them at the time of purchase on the authorized presale network, or you ask the theater's remote ticket office, at 06 6794585.

Are there afternoon performances?

Ispettore in casa Birling at Quirino has three afternoon performances at 17:00: Thursday, March 4, Saturday, March 6 and Sunday, March 7, 2027. The other three, Tuesday, March 2, Wednesday, March 3 and Friday, March 5, are at 21:00.

How do you get to Teatro Quirino?

Teatro Quirino, at Via delle Vergini 7 in the Trevi district, can be reached on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops of metro line A, in about 10 minutes. The historic center is a ZTL: the car has to be left outside.

The final tip on Ispettore in casa Birling

Ispettore in casa Birling is, in our view, one of the most solid titles of the Quirino season: a classic that works like a mystery, an author's translation, a director who has known the hall for 40 years, three actors with different paths. My tip is to arrive without knowing the ending, choose the orchestra or the first balcony, and take advantage of the matinees if you want your evening free. And afterward, at dinner, discuss who had figured it out first.

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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