In dirt-poor western Sicily, few peasants can read, even fewer can afford to buy a book. So what was anyone talking about in Roccamena last week? Shakespeare, Brecht, Dante, Aeschylus, to name a few of the poets and playwrights whose works were featured in the town's first informal festival of the performing arts. Star performer was Movie Idol Vittorio Gassman, who for two straight nights strode a sidewalk "stage" illumined by car headlights while declaiming passages from Julius Caesar, The Divine Comedy and other works. Whatever they made of it, the Roccamenensi were an appreciative audience.
Actually it was a fast...