RIP Aldo Bufi Landi

Dead actor Aldo Bufi Landi, a life between Eduardo and Shakespeare

By Henry Flower

February 3, 2016

The last time we saw him on stage in Naples, precisely to Bellini, was at the opening of the 2008-2009 season, when he played the character of the servant Gavrila it "The land of idiots," the comedy that he obtained Tato Russian novel by Dostoyevsky " Il villaggio di Stepàncikovo".

And it was all a program the way, with his fierce scowl, hurled the anathema against the salons populated by " chilli addutturate de la città ca le coce la capa" .Yes, Aldo Bufi Landi, who has died at nearly 93 years of age, was one of the most distinctive and characteristic features of the Neapolitan theater: so much so that, after having been part of the Theater Humor "The De Filippo," Eduardo stayed with him even when separated by Peppino. And, moreover, it was within that company that he met the actress Clara Bindi, the woman who would become his wife. Bufi Landi, therefore, acted alongside Eduardo - to name only the headlines – in “Napoli milionaria!”, “Filumena Marturano”, “Questi fantasmi!” and “Le voci di dentro”.

And hand in hand, he was among the better actors of the movies that made the history of Italian cinema as “I magliari”, “Il mattatore” and “47 morto che parla” whose protagonists were called, respectively, Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman and Totò. To return to the scope of the Neapolitan theater, we have to remember that at least Aldo Bufi Landi took part in the preparation of the undisputed classics of our most genuine farcical tradition two for all, those of "Poverty and Nobility" Eduardo Scarpetta, directed in 1980 by Mario Scarpetta and starring among others by the same Mario, from Dolores Palumbo and Giuseppe Anatrelli, and “O miedeco d'e pazze” even Scarpetta, directed in 1996 by Aldo Giuffre and He boasted in the company, along with Aldo, precisely Clara Bindi. He acted in plays by authors like Shakespeare, Goldoni, Pirandello and Garcia Lorca. And in the case of Shakespeare, he even managed to merge the two dimensions, that of the theater language and that it became infected by the Neapolitan theater, taking part in 1998, and assuming the extremely important role of Polonius, a "Hamlet" revisited again by Tato Russo.

Finally, to say the ductility of expression and the desire to get in the game that never left him, it remembers that Aldo Bufi Landi went so far as in the territories of the most advanced experimental dramatic: when, in 1996, he played - in the context of the seventeenth edition of the exhibition " Città Spettacolo" of Benevento – “Nel tempo di un tango” Roger Cappuccio. Doveva face, let alone, a text that - in the words of the author - was "beat secret in my heart of emotions" and in which they were born " the sounds of the senses, sublimated or oppressed by a surprising, shallow depth of life that can dissolve into brilliant allegretti, crescendo of sharp melancholy, symphonies accents and rhythms of a South in which vibrates the mystery of time, the nostalgia of lost loves or never had the desire inescapable death through love. " And Aldo did not demerit.