A revival of Giorgio Strehler's 1984 mounting of Eduardo De Filippo's La grande magia (The Great Magic) opens tonight, May 14, at Milan's Nuovo Piccolo Teatro.

The show will feature scenes by Enzo Frigerio and costumes by Luisa Spinatelli; Carlo Battiston will reproduce Strehler's original direction. Renato De Carmine will recreate the leading role of Otto Marvuglia, the magician so used to cheating that he eventually believes the illusions he produces for his spectators. Also starring are Giancarlo Dettori who will play the role of Calogero Di Spelta, and Eleonora Brigliadori who plays Marta Di Spelta, his wife.

La grande magia is not one of Eduardo's most popular plays. The Neapolitan playwright wrote it in 1948, and died a few days before Strehler began rehearsals for his new mounitng. De Filippo wrote some 40 plays altogether, several of the finest of which, like Filumena Marturano (Filumena), Sabato Domenica e Lunedi (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) and Napoli Milionaria! (Affluent Naples) have enjoyed not only great popularity in Italy, but considerable success abroad. All his plays are firmly placed in the life and attitudes of the Neapolitan petty-bourgeois and working class and their language reflects the evolving Neapolitan dialect and the vocabulary of modern life.

Further information on La grande magia, which will run at Nuovo Piccolo Teatro thru May 31, and on the Piccole Grandi Magie Festival, is available visiting the Piccolo Teatro website (which is currently promoting a special Internet offer for the Emil Hrvatin's show Giulio Camillo - Memo 1.0). For tickets, further information and credit card booking it is possible to contact the box office at +39 2 72.333.222.

--By Stefano Curti
Italy Correspondent