Starring:
Juliette Binoche
Ben Daniels
Romy Baskerville
Oliver Ford Davies
Anita Reeves
Naked (Vestire gli ignudi) was written in 1922 and belongs to a very successful period of Pirandello's dramatic writing. The heroine of Naked, Ersilia Drei (Juliette Binoche), is exploited by four men in turn: the novelist Ludovico Nota, the reporter Alfredo Cantavalle, her ex-fiance the naval lieutenant Franco Laspiga, and her ex-employer and lover The Consul Grotti, who in each re-enter her life in the opposite order to the one in which they made their first appearance. In spite of being the victim, Ersilia has disrupted the lives of her tormentors, and in the end it is she, like so many of Pirandello's women, who remains in our minds as more powerful than her male antagonists.
This play shares many themes with Pirandello's other major works; We encounter the multifaceted nature of human personality: Ersilia is seen in a different light by those who come into contact with her, but more than that, each one of them has a variety of responses to her, depending on what aspect of her life she is revealing. Notable for her change in attitude is the landlady Onoria who, first encountering Ersilia as a woman brought home by the lodger Nota, treats her as a slut, only to become all sympathy when she discovers that the newcomer is the unfortunate victim in the newspaper article, finally to turn against her again when her affair with her employer is revealed.
Naked marked Juliette Binoche’s London stage debut and was critically acclaimed by the London press. Listen to Juliette Binoche's performance in Naked below in the From the archives section.
Onoria
Ersilia Drei
Ludovico Nota
Alfredo Cantavalle
Franco Laspiga
Emma
Grotti
Anita Reeves
Juliette Binoche
Oliver Ford Davies
David Sibley
Ben Daniels
Romy Baskerville
Kevin McNally
Directed by
Written by
Based on a new translation by
Design by
Original lighting by
Music by
Sound by
Voice coaching by
Casting by
Assistant director
Literal translation
Still photography by
Jonathan Kent
Luigi Pirandello
Nicholas Wright
Paul Brown
Mark Henderson
Jonathan Dove
Aura Sound Design
Patsy Rodenberg
Wendy Brazington
Tom Yarwood
Gaynor Macfarlane
Ivan Kyncl
Directed by Jonathan Kent
1998
BBC Playhouse
Listen to Juliette Binoche's performance in Naked
© Provided for reference only
Juliette Binoche talks about Naked (FR)
© Provided for reference only