Shakespeare in Naples: I Partenopei As Told by The Bard

With some analytical licence, it is safe to say that The Bard wrote exactly eleven Neapolitan characters over the course of his 37 plays. All eleven are found in The Tempest which, in a blow to SSC Napoli fans the world over, does not take place in Naples, rather in an imaginary island somewhere between the southern Italian city and Tunis.

With a little more analytical licence, lines can be drawn between current and former players who donned the shirt for I Partenopei and each of Shakespeare’s eleven characters from Naples.

To use a footballing analogy, the plot of The Tempest is like a classic encounter between Napoli and AC Milan during the Maradona era. The backstory of the play has the two cities butting heads to the extent that Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, has to flee the city with his infant daughter due to a murder plot instigated by his brother, Antonio. 

The King of Naples, Alonso, is the Jorginho figure in this conspiracy, running the show from the back. Prospero ends up on an island, learns powerful magic, and twelve years later gets his magical sprite Ariel to conjure up a storm to shipwreck Antonio and the Neapolitan court on his doorstep. Alonso has just been to Tunis to see his daughter get married. Chaos ensues, and what begins as a revenge story ends with reconciliation and forgiveness – a high scoring draw. Throughout the course of the play, Shakespeare also happens to throw in some of the most beautiful writing in the history of the English language.

Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o’er

and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

The Tempest begins with a tense conversation between Neapolitans during a storm. The character, described simply as ‘Master,’ gives the Boatswain some very general instructions before promptly leaving the scene. I’ve never been on deck during a storm but the advice isn’t exactly packed full of useful, implementable advice:

Speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely,

or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Leaving the scene just four lines in also doesn’t strike me as the kind of behaviour a man of character would enact. For this reason, the Master has to be the much-maligned Gonzalo Higuain. The Argentinian striker broke the hearts of Napoli fans when he left the club for their arch rivals Juventus, just as the team was threatening to become a dominant force in Italy.

The Boatswain, however, is exactly the kind of player you’d want on your team. Abandoned by his boss, he’s left to sort out the situation whilst being surrounded by high profile players, such as the King of Naples. Does his plight phase him? Of course not. He’s not afraid to bark orders to those of noble blood, as well as his own gang of mariners. There can therefore be only one selection for this role – Napoli’s own captain fantastic: Antonio Juliano. He led the club for a record 12 seasons, winning the 1976 Coppa Italia, before helping to bring in legends Ruud Krol and Diego Maradona as a director after his playing career had ended. 

Halfway through the dramatic opening scene of the play, a group of Mariners rush onto the stage. Unlike the Boatswain, they lack the courage and skill to get this boat through the storm. These men only have one official line in the play, simply bemoaning:

All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!

For want of a better expression, these guys are useless. It is for this reason I’ve cast possibly the least impressive signing to ever have arrived in Naples: Michu.

O thou mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish

Hath made his meal on thee?

Enough of these rough and tumble working men, let’s start to think about the movers and shakers of the Neapolitan Court. Alonso is the King of Naples but cuts a forlorn figure for much of the play, speaking in the Jacobean equivalent of My Chemical Romance lyrics,

I wish mine eyes

Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts.

He is convinced that Ferdinanrd, his son and heir, has been killed in the shipwreck, and arrives at a realisation that his previous heinous acts could be coming back to bite.

In footballing terms, there is only one King of Naples: Diego Armando Maradona and the 1990/91 version of D10S is who I would cast in this role. Asif Kapada’s 2019 documentary paints a vivid picture of the end of Maradona’s career in Naples – post Italia ’90 he lost the support of the club and league, and his past indiscretions came back to haunt him. He left the club and the city under a cloud which has been partly forgotten in the footballing collective memory. Like Alonso, Maradona found redemption, and on his few visits back to the city in more recent times was adored by the Napoli faithful. 

Ferdinand, the son of Alonso, is the prince of Naples. There’s only one player who could be seen in such terms. The latest icon of the club – Victor Osimhen.

Alonso also has a brother, Sebastian. He remains a dastardly figure throughout the play, coming up with ingenious ways to kill Alonso. The concept of using off the books wit to gain the upper hand is known as cazzimma in Naples. In the current Napoli team, the cazzimma king is Mario Rui; he will play the role of Sebastian.

Gonzalo is a member of Alonso’s court and an all-round good guy. He helps Prospero and his daughter escape Milan a few years back and shares a wonderfully eccentric and utopian vision of how they could transfer the island into a modern society:

All things in common nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,

Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,

To feed my innocent people.

An odd-ball with brilliant ideas? Has to be Luciano Spalletti.

Gonzalo has Adrian with him, a Neapolitan lord. He has very little to say but is cut from the same cloth as his idealistic friend, backing up his ideas whenever he can. Luis Vinicio brought Total Football to Naples in the 1970’s, introducing zonal marking when it was the stuff of a madman’s dreams. Last year, on his ninetieth birthday, he visited Spalletti’s dressing room to absurdly heart-warming scenes.

That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor.

The final characters to consider in the play are my two favourites. I have directed The Tempest twice; Stefano and Trinculo provide fantastic moments of drunken physical comedy. 

Stefano is a Neapolitan butler who gets ideas beyond his station when he bumps into Caliban, who is indigenous to the island. Stefano likes a drink or nine, and gives Caliban his first tipple. The islander then considers Stefano to be a god, since he is in possession of such a glorious substance. Stefano sings, plots and generally takes the piss out of everyone on stage. He has to be played by Napoli ‘banter legend’, Ciro Mertens. Whether it was his imaginary man picking him up off the ground on the pitch, his dog-against-a-lamppost celebration against Roma or his early wild nights in Naples nightclubs – Ciro always kept Napoli tifosi entertained.

Stefano’s sidekick is a heavy drinking jester called Trinculo. He’s a fruity character, and becomes rather toxic when his friendship with Stefano is threatened by a new arrival. Lorenzo Insigne and Mertens were very close, and the diminutive Neapolitan did suffer from bouts of not-terribly-nice behaviour in Naples – like the time he led a players’ strike against Carlo Ancelotti.

Finally, we have Francisco, a lord serving under Alonso. He doesn’t have a huge amount to do in the play, but Shakespeare still writes some depth into his parts. When Alonso is at the height of his despair, fearing his son to be drowned, Francisco remains positive, with a suggestion that Ferdinand rode the backs of fishes to make it to shore alive. So, which is the most positive presence at SSC Napoli? It has to be the legendary stadium announcer Decibel Bellini. His post-goal announcements are worth the ticket price alone.

Outside of my imagination and until scholars unearth a lost Shakespeare play set in Naples, the best place to find a truly Neapolitan vision of The Bard’s work is Eduardo De Filippo’s La Tempesta. The great Neapolitan actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet translated Shakespeare’s play into the language of the region. The last line of the play, where the actor playing Ariel asks the audience for applause in a wonderfully poetic way: 

As you from crimes would pardoned be, 

Let your indulgence set me free. 

Is translated thus:

Cumme a vuje piace d’essere cundunate da li peccate,

Accussí ve piacesse con indulgenza liberare mene.