realities of life, and his characters tend to create those illusions when they have reached the breaking point. De Filippo, however, also conveys the belief that people cannot shut out reality forever; they must struggle to face it, to grasp it firmly, to wrestle with it, and eventually to change it. This is the challenge that De Filippo makes his characters face; this is the challenge that he offers to all his public. Corruption and injustice can be destroyed if one is willing to fight them and to reestablish true moral values, especially if those values revolve around the traditional one of family unity. The metamorphosis of the isolated individual into a caring, loving member of the family unit is not an easy or rapid one; rather, it is extremely difficult and gradual, for those who surround the isolated individual constantly erect barriers that hamper the transformation. What the individual must do is recognize that there are barriers, identify them, hurdle them, and then be prepared to defend his newly found moral stance against the derisive jeers of the other members of the family. He must pronounce convincingly the importance of the essential values of family unity.

De Filippo divided his plays into two groups: Cantata dei giorni pari (cantata of the even days) and Cantata dei giorni dispari (cantata of the odd days). The former encompasses all the plays written up to the beginning of World War II and the latter all the plays written after 1940. The “plays of the even days” generally reflect De Filippo’s fascination with the farcical Neapolitan theater. They have been characterized by critics as the least important of his works, yet they show, in some fashion, his preoccupation with the ideas and the themes that dominate his “plays of the odd days.” The farcical may be the most evident aspect of those early plays, but underneath the farcical there already is a satiric current that probes the social injustices of society.

Farmacia di turno

De Filippo’s first play, Farmacia di turno, lacks the nuance and the bite of his later plays. This one-act play, however, anticipates, in modest form, the characterizations, the realistic locales in Naples, and the themes of his mature works. The story takes place in a pharmacy owned by Saverio, a setting filled with people who are seeking medicines that will alleviate their suffering. The play suggests that some of their ills are spiritual rather than physical and that their pain cannot be alleviated by medicines. Saverio’s wife has deserted him, but this does not bother him because he never did think highly of marriage. One of the clients has asked for rat poison, which he then inadvertently leaves on the counter. In the meantime, Saverio’s former wife’s servant comes in to get some medicine for her mistress, picks up the wrong parcel—the rat poison—and goes home. The obvious conclusion is that Saverio’s former wife will die and that he will be falsely accused of murder. Thus, the fickle hand of fate has struck once again. Although the story sounds implausible, there is enough truth in it to make the play believable.

Uomo e galantuomo

De Filippo’s first three-act play, Uomo e galantuomo, has none of the sadness and cynicism of Farmacia di turno. It is filled with comic dialogue and slapstick humor in the vein of the commedia dell’arte. Even so, it does touch on the Pirandellian theme of sanity versus insanity. Alberto, impresario of a penniless theatrical troupe, falls in love with a young girl, Bice, about whom he knows nothing. Gennaro, the lead comic of the troupe, is chosen to find out where she lives, which he does. Alberto goes to Bice’s mother to announce his intentions to marry her but learns that Bice already is married. In order to save face, he feigns insanity. Bice’s husband requests that Alberto be committed to an asylum, but the authorities rule that he is sane; Bice’s husband insists that Alberto continue acting insane to save his own honor. Learning that Bice has had an affair and that Bice knows about his own extramarital affairs, the husband also feigns insanity, and when the innkeeper presents the bill to Gennaro, he too “becomes insane” in order not to pay the bill. The weakness of the play is that the farcical humor overshadows a potentially significant theme: the plight of people who must resort to such devious means in order to survive.

Sik-Sik, The Masterful Magician

The jewel of De Filippo’s even-day plays is Sik-Sik, The Masterful Magician. Sik-Sik is a clearly defined and fully developed character. As De Filippo describes him, he is a “typical traditional strolling actor: poor, tormented, and . . . a philosopher.” Sik-Sik struggles to survive in a society that does not seem to have a place for him. His life is meaningless, and yet his will to survive is strong. He lives in a world of illusion and dreams: He is the master of his art, and he will be acclaimed by all as such, or so he believes. He hungers for applause, the food that will sustain him. (These are the same factors that are a part of the lives of the characters in De Filippo’s post-World War II plays.)

Sik-Sik usually has a compare (assistant) who is planted in the audience to participate in Sik-Sik’s magical tricks. One night, the regular assistant, Nicola, does not show up, and so Sik-Sik gives the job to Rafele, who is well-meaning but somewhat incompetent. When Nicola appears at curtain time to do his usual job, Rafele does not want to relinquish his new position. A scuffle ensues between the two, and during the course of the performance, when Sik-Sik asks for a volunteer from the audience, both Nicola and Rafele respond, and Sik-Sik’s magical, illusionary world begins to crumble. To the audience’s great amusement, the secrets behind the trunk escape and the disappearing doves are revealed. In the confusion, a real padlock instead of a fake one is used to lock Sik-Sik’s pregnant wife in a trunk, and when she cannot escape, as she usually does, Sik-Sik is forced to break the lock with a hammer to free her. Finally, a chicken instead of a pigeon comes out of Rafele’s hat, but Sik-Sik saves at least a small part of his magical “mastery” by telling the audience that through his magic he has turned the pigeon into a chicken.

Napoli milionaria!

Napoli milionaria! initiated the second phase of De Filippo’s plays, the plays of the odd days, in which the emphasis is on specific themes. Napoli milionaria! is a bittersweet comedy that lashes out at the war, the government and its leaders, corruption, and ill-gotten wealth. The war envelops the people with the destruction and killing that accompany it, but the true sadness is the effect of the war on the behavior of the people. War seems to bring out all the worst elements, and destroy all the good, of human conduct. The story revolves around the Iovine family. Gennaro Iovine, unemployed because of the war, becomes involved in the black market, an activity he abhors but in which he feels he must engage to survive. On the other hand, his wife, Donna Amalia, is not bothered by it; what must be done, must be done, she contends. When one day the police arrive to verify their suspicions about the Iovine family, Gennaro hides the merchandise under the bed, lies on it pretending that he is dead, and is surrounded by crying women. An aerial bombardment causes alarm and disrupts the mourning. The investigating officer is moved by the fact that Gennaro keeps on playing dead in the face of real danger and decides not to take any action against him. Later the audience learns that Gennaro has been deported to Germany and that Donna Amalia has become rich. On his return home, Gennaro finds that he is an outsider; he is ignored by his wife. He also learns that his oldest daughter is pregnant by an American soldier who has deserted her, his son is a thief, and another daughter is critically ill. Donna Amalia realizes the ugliness of the black market when she cannot get medicine for her daughter because other black marketeers have it all. Finally, the accountant, Riccardo, a victim of Donna Amalia’s oppressive black-market prices, provides the medicine to help cure the daughter. The moral is that unity extends beyond the family to society as a whole.

The Best House in Naples

The most famous De Filippo play is perhaps The Best House in Naples, also known as Filumena; it was certainly his most successful. It is a play that focuses on the overpowering authority of the nuclear family and the moral demands that it places on each member of the family. Filumena is the very essence of the woman who believes in God, in religious faith, in sacrifice, in patience, and she also is a passionate woman subject to moments of violent jealousy. Filumena, born into poverty and forced by poverty to become a prostitute in her youth, has been the kept woman of the well-to-do Domenico for more than twenty years. She perceives the injustice of life, however, when Domenico shifts his affections to a younger woman. With a fierce determination to establish her dignity as a woman, a true wife, and a mother (she has had three sons by unknown fathers), she devises a plan to force Domenico to marry her. She feigns a serious illness, and on her “deathbed” she asks Domenico to grant her one last wish—to marry her. He does so believing she will die very soon. Instead, Filumena leaps from the bed, asserts herself as a wife should, and takes over the running of the house. Domenico wants to have the marriage annulled on the grounds that he was tricked into marriage, but when Filumena tells him that one of the sons is his, refusing to reveal which one it is, he accepts the situation and adopts all three. Thus the traditional family has been established, family unity prevails, and Filumena and Domenico have achieved a sense of dignity.

The Best House in Naples symbolically deals with the social truism of the brotherhood of man: Love knows no social barriers. All members of society are equal and all are entitled to justice. In its use of the conventional materials of farce and comic theater to make a serious point, it is characteristic of De Filippo’s drama.