WRITER - "IL GESTORE" (1994)

"IL GESTORE" , Proust's friend Albert Le Cuziat & Carlo Reali

When Giorgio Quintini finished writing "Il Gestore", the obvious actor for the role he had created was his old friend Carlo Reali, about whom we shall say little here as he will be described by Giorgio himself later in this post. Suffice it to say that the current writer had the privilege of seeing Carlo Reali in the role in Rome and he made a perfect Le Cuziat.

Albert Le Cuziat

Albert Le Cuziat ran a male brothel which was financed by Marcel Proust, who had furnished it with his mother's furniture. Giorgio's monologue has him looking back on his life, much as Colette did on hers in his Intervista a Colette. As he himself says in an interesting note he has left, the two monologues show two outsiders whose secret lives have different effects upon them. They also reveal aspects of his own. This is his note, which is undated but from the typing seems to have been done in Rome during the 1990s.

The one act play was written in Rome in 1994 but not performed until 5th June 2000 in a group of plays put on for Il Garofano Verde: Scenari di Teatro Omosessuale at the Teatro Belli as a one off performance.

The underlining in red is by Giorgio

Shortly after this performance the play saw the light again in Rome in a series called "Stanze Segrete" from October to December at the Teatro Stanze Segrete in Trastevere (Via della Penitenza, 3 - the address amused Giorgio). He wrote this useful and interesting introduction to the play for these performances; there is also a note on Carlo Reali.

Carlo Reali  in the period he was performing in Il Gestore

The play was evidently filmed and Giorgio had a copy of the tape, which has unfortunately disappeared. It was certainly shown the year following his arrival in Ovada, on Wednesday 6th July 2001, as can be seen from this newspaper cutting.

L'Ovadese, 5 luglio 2001

Some four years later the film was shown again, with an introduction by Giorgio, in which he spoke of Proust, one of the myths of his wide reading - he had read all the Recherche in both French and Italian as well as many biographies.

from Due Sotto l'Ombrello (Ovada), 1st April 2005

(part of the poster is shown at the head of this post)

The author wrote various introductions for showings of the film. The following is the shortest and that in which he states that the play was written with Carlo Reali in mind.

The play itself fills 14 pages of A4 typescript. There are two signed versions extant, one which had been put into a computer for him and his original personally typed script. It is that which is given here. The first and last pages are reproduced.

Proust's Jupien, based upon Albert Le Cuziat, with the Baron de Charlus, 

an illustration by Kees van Dongen.