A knight errant, a migrant Don Quixote, from an ugly duckling he became a Flamingo because the more he read the more his legs grew. Now he is tall and skinny but for this very reason he looks at everything as if flying, from above, and wanders around the city offering comfort to young and old against the threats of the evil Militia. Those terrible bandits are convinced that books are harmful, negative, even laxatives, and they hunt down and imprison anyone who touches one, ready to burn every volume like in Fahrenheit 451.
They are Captain Beatty and his not so faithful Montag, who in the service of King Toto the Great pursue the beautiful stories together with those who have loved them or kept them in memory. And above all they seek him, the rebellious visionary and delirious stilt walker.
Born in Sardinia as an occasional text for a traveling show staged by the Cada Die Teatro company, which then adapted it to the stage and took it on tour, entertaining children and winning prizes, Chisciotte Fenicottero is reborn today in a writing that preserves the imprint and traces of that time and yet renews itself, is disconcerted, is moved, and goes on a quest. The constant is the fervent and sonorous language of the poet-playwright Tognolini, who imagines a theater where the rhythmic element marks both the sequence of scenes and the lines, mostly in verse; where more than the actions, the stories, the songs, the wanderings can, and the final duel is a poetic competition, as it still happens somewhere in the world.
Who will win, with rap and rhymes? Will the blows still hurt? Will Theater, Literature, Poetry find themselves friends or enemies? And if people say that ‘ostriches put their heads in the sand so they can’t see’, is it also true that ‘flamingos put their heads in the water to read’?
