Volume 22, Number 2 · February 20, 1975
Nicola Chiaromonte and the Theatre
By Mary McCarthy
When Nicola Chiaromonte died in January, 1972—of a heart attack, just after taking part in a discussion program on Italian radio—there was a remarkable outburst of emotion. To his widow (Miriam, an American and a former teacher of English at Washington Irving High School in New York) in their Roman apartment came a continuous flow of telegrams and letters from Italy, France, England, the United States. The messages expressed the grief of people of the most varying kinds, from the head of state to the old woman who used to sell him newspapers in the village in Liguria where he once spent his summers. One of the most moving was from a young member of Potere Operaio (an extreme leftist group), which read something like this: 'He has been a model for everyone of intellectual and moral lucidity.' When he died, Chiaromonte was in his late sixties and far in his thinking from the extreme left. The memorial tributes that followed during the next weeks in the press were, again, from the most varying sources: ranging from the centrist Corriere della Sera and La Stampa to the communist-inclined Paese Sera. Most interesting was the fact that in all those words written and wired there was scarcely a one that had an official or conventional ring, even those sent by official 'personalities.'
Feature, 8671 words
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