WRITER - "IO CATERINA"

"IO CATERINA"

Monologue of Catherine II, "the Great", of Russia

If one wishes to date Giorgio Quintini's writings exactly one can only regret that he did not keep a diary, although many of his friends may be happy that he didn't, as he had an eye for recording scandal. One of the last monologues he wrote, if not the last, seems to have been this one in which Catherine the Great of Russia looks back on her life and recalls it, mostly in chronological order.

Catherine II of Russia by J. B. Lampi

Catherine II of Russia (1729-1796) interested Giorgio as another of those strong women who ruled in a world of men. They fascinated him. This "Messalina of the North", who was notorious for her enjoyment of sexual relations with various younger and attractive men, was an appropriate subject for his pen. At the centre of the monologue is the line, "I was the only woman who used power to get sex, where women used sex to get power." When she finishes, a second monologue starts which shows her from the opposite point of view of her servant girl and personal maid, Mascia. Giorgio Quintini here looks forward to the period when the servants would abandon and betray their masters in the Bolshevik Revolution. (Although he never voted in Italian elections, Giorgio's political sympathies were with the hard left wing.)

The monologue was written in Ovada and appears to have been given at least twice for the local cultural association "Due Sotto l'Ombrello". Once in Villa Elvira, where he had performed other works (for a manuscript introduction to that occasion exists), and once at Ovada's Scalinata Sligge, according to the newspaper cutting attached below, which unfortunately bears no date.

The Villa Elvira performance, done by Giorgio himself in the part of both Catherine II and of Mascia (we have said elsewhere that for this sort of reading Giorgio Quintini's naturally high pitched voice was an advantage), was preceded by a shortish but discursive introduction on Catherine herself and containing various digressions about her and other ruling houses which he thought might entertain his listeners. This is the manuscript first page of that presentation.

In his file on the monologue Giorgio Quintini, who was ruthless with books if they served his purpose (some friends never lent him books because of this), attached the portrait of Catherine as a stout and aging queen by Lampi (1751-1830). It clearly appealed to him and his monologue is from the narrative voice of this Catherine, who is old, like Giorgio himself. In the opinion of the present writer, however, the author does not penetrate the feelings of his character as he manages to do with Colette and other subjects of his. This develops into a nostalgic listing of her lovers, which is not adequately counter-balanced by the denunciation of her maid, Mascia. However, this is a personal point of view.

The Lampi portrait Giorgio attached to his manuscript.

In a local paper, Simonetta Albertelli reviews "Io Caterina" at the Scalinate Sligge

When Giorgio Quintini had personally typed his manuscripts, the typescript became the original copy, which he usually signed and sometimes but rarely dated. He seems to have destroyed his first rough copy manuscripts. On one occasion, with Il Gestore, he also had the play put onto a computer disc and it was printed also in a readable acting copy. "Io Caterina", whose title and first words look back ironically to the famous letter to the Pope by the patron saint of Italy, St Catherine of Siena ("Io Caterina, serva e schiava . . .", which Giorgio and the present writer used to quote when we had household chores to do), is on twenty-one leaves of A4 typing paper, 1 to 15 for Catherine and 16 to 21 for Mascia. Here is the opening and then the last and signed page.

The opening of the monologue by Catherine the Great

The close of the monologue by Mascia, her servant.