text by Davide Carnevali
a show built, interpreted and directed by Teatrino Giullare
lights Francesca Ida Zarpellon
thanks to Gianluca Vigone
a co-production Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione and Teatrino Giullare
with the support of Regione Emilia-Romagna
lenght 1 hour and 15 minutes
world première
in Italian with English subtitles
The texts of the Italian playwright Davide Carnevali are translated in 13 languages and presented in several international theatre festivals and seasons.
Teatrino Giullare’s theatrical research focuses on mixing arts, exploring physical limits and expressive skills and on experimenting stage artifices. This translates into an original poetics leading to theatre performances, installations, laboratories, special theatre and art projects, which have been welcomed worldwide, in 33 different countries.
An idea is born from one’s mind and tragedy begins. Reason is to be blamed for this.
Menelaus starts puzzling over and pushes the conflict with his own ambitions to such a point that makes him unable to distinguish ideas from actions; he ends up being unable to live and love. Among books, statues and other memories, under the serious gaze of some irreverent gods, Menelaus struggles to find a reason to his life, without finding any.
He was not able to be become what he wanted to be, he is not a hero, he is not the protagonist in any story, he is just a minor character. This is why he writes his own gestures, trying to create his character, another self, an eidolon who is, in turn, incapable of living.
A short-circuit is produced between real and imaginary, a double cross where desperately comic words are used and myth is revealed through concepts like love, dream, conscience and death.
Menelaus has everything, lives in prosperity but still cannot enjoy his life. In his useless quest for a solution to his misery, he oversteps time, he does not live nor die.
A miserable impasse caused by the confused desires of a man who has to cope with his ideal self, a contemporary tragedy, indeed.
Teatrino Giullare
Teatrino Giullare
Founded and directed by Giulia Dall’Ongaro and Enrico Deotti, actors and directors, creates an original theatre-piece with a strong visual approach and using artificial actors flanked by the acting of ‘real’ actors. Since 1995, the company has created innovative theatrical shows that have been performed throughout Italy and in numerous countries around the world (Europe, Canada, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Ethiopia, Kenia, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Morocco…).
Teatrino Giullare after a long research on Commedia dell’Arte and classical theatre with a modern and ironic look , is involved in a project dedicated to Contemporary dramaturgy and the artifice on the scene, producing from 2005 Endgame by Beckett, Destination by Thomas Bernhard, Black battles with dogs by B.M. Koltès, The Room by Harold Pinter and Woman as Lovers by E. Jelinek.
The main purpose of the project is the research on some twentieth century’s classics and contemporary theatre pieces trough an original vision that experiments the use of artificial actors and filters to intensify the real nature of texts. This project won the Italian Awards of Critics and Premio Speciale Ubu (the main Italian awards for theatre) for the depth of interpretation of contemporary classics earning a great interest from audience and critics.
Teatrino Giullare is the first Italian theater company to stage the unfinished and unpublished Coco by B.M.Koltès, the novel Woman as lovers by E.Jelinek, the First In-Quarto of Romeo and Juliet by W.Shakespeare.
Many theses and universities studies were carried on the work and poetic of Teatrino Giullare that has also published the book “Playing endgame” (Ed Titivillus, 2006) on the work about Beckett. The company have often been invited to hold workshops and professional seminars on their theatrical art form at, amongst other places, the University of Bologna and Venezia, the Museo Argentino del Titere in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the University of Smirne (Turkey), the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad (India), the Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade (Serbia), The S. Mubarak Museum in Il Cairo (Egypt), The National Theatre of Tirana (Albania), the Centrum Edukacji Kulturalnej of Warsaw (Poland), the Theatre Festival Iberoamericano of Bogotà (Colombia).
They have won numerous prizes and awards, including International Festival of Genova (1998), Best Actress World Art Festival, Prague (2003), National Italian Award of Critics (2006), Ubu Special Prize (2006) Special Jury Award Mess Festival Sarajevo (2007), Hystrio Prize – Altre Muse(2011).