[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts 2026 Hollywood Fringe Festival review of Fringe Management LLC’s U.S. premiere of The Show Has Been Cancelled (Due To the End of the World), written, directed and performed by Danilo Napoli, and co-directed by Antonietta Barcellona.
Italian actor, writer and director Danilo Napoli and his frequent creative partner Antonietta Barcellona have created a weird and brilliant commentary on our current world and its careening course into oblivion. Set in the future, although not a future that feels too different from our now, the story follows one man, a theatre man, whose final act of rebellion before the planet dies is to keep alive the last remaining theatre.
One might call it a folly, to turn to the preservation of art as a means of survival. But what more is there to live for in the end or to protect than the collective words and memory of the human race dramatized for entertainment and enlightenment? I for one can think of nothing more meaningful.
And so this lonely actor describes to us his world and how it came to be. The idiocy. The greed. The refusal to learn or to listen and on and on. Sounds familiar?
The Show Has Been Cancelled (Due To the End of the World) is a warning, an epic short play with cinematic elements and soulfully comedic laments on the shame of the human race.
This is as good a time as any for this kind of show, and Danilo Napoli has written something profound as well as very very funny. His wonderfully heavy Italian accent makes his words all the more real and truthful somehow. As if he has nothing more to lose than to be here, in Hollywood, baring his actor’s soul trying to save us all.
Although he makes it clear that the end is nigh and there is nothing more to be done. It is a comfort to know that he seeks refuge in a theatre and as his friends and fellow creatives pass away for one reason or another, he remains, stubbornly clownishly alive. It is a testament to art and to Italy that he is as belligerently determined to never be told when enough is enough!
This is a funny and strangely moving play. One man on stage, with his dwindling props and decreasing amount of time to share something one last time with an audience, even if we are perhaps only a figment of his imagination.
I think it’s a wonderful and poetic way to spend the last of your time alive communicating, recording for posterity and for future beings how you thought it best to spend the time you have.
I loved Danilo Napoli and Antonietta Barcellona’s The Show Has Been Cancelled (Due To the End of the World). What is art for if not to remind us how to live?
Danilo is astounding. Free, truthful and real. A wonderful, vivid performer whose deep belief in this funny and imaginative play transports his audience completely. Bravo!
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