Discovering Pasolini: Notes on an unborn movie
October 28 – October 30, 2011
An international project of: La MaMa Umbria International and La MaMa Experimental Theatre
Teatro La Pergola, Florence (Italy)
28-30 October, 2011 (world preview)
Text development: Andrea Jeva Quacquarelli
Adaption and directed: Andrea Paciotto
with:
Paulina Almeida
Carl Beleites
Raffaele Ottolenghi
David Power
Gable Roelofsen
Francesco Bolo Rossini
Music and sound: Malu Peeters
Set design: Jeffrey Isaac
Dramaturgy: Andrea Jeva Quacquarelli
with the collaboration of: Gherardo Vitali Rosati e Francesco Rossini
Producing director: Adriana Garbagnati
Stage Manager: Paolo Pannaccio
Costums realizazion: Laura Giannisi
Video realization: Roberto Ippolito
Light Design: Massimo Guarnotta
Online collaboration: Billy Clark, CultureHub
Organization: Offucina Eclectic Arts
with the special appearance of:
George Drance, Gherardo Vitali Rosati, Andrea Quacquarelli, Andrea Paciotto
special thanks to:
Graziella Cerami, Combo Perugia, Cooperativa Il Cerchio,
Compagnia Italiana, Culturehub
Teatro La Pergola
Via della Pergola 18/32, Firenze
Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October – at 8:30 and 10:30 pm
Sunday 30 October – at 4:30 pm
information and tickets: tel. +39 055/2264353 pubblico@teatrodellapergola.com
Click here to view photos from the rehearsals
Click here read a newspaper article on Discovering Pasolini
Discovering Pasolini, notes on an unborn movie is an international theatre project through which La MaMa choses to celebrate the great Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. The first phase of the project will be presented this October, in Florence, within the Theatre Festival “Il Teatro Italiano nel Mondo”, a special event conceived by Maurizio Scaparro, for the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Italian unification.
Artistic director of the project is Andrea Paciotto, the Italian director collaborating with La MaMa during the last 20 years, and it is realized in partnership with La MaMa Umbria International, the Artist Residence funded by Ellen Stewart in Spoleto, Italy. An interdisciplinary group of international artists has been reunited from Germany, Portugal, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Italy and United States.
Discovering Pasolini, notes on an unborn movie will be presented as a site specific theatre performance, within various space of the Theatre La Pergola, one of oldest historical theater buildings in Italy. It will be performed in English and Italian, with subtitles.
A DIALOGUE WITH PASOLINI, THROUGH SAINT PAUL
The performance finds its inspiration from the screenplay of a movie about Saint Paul, that Pasolini never managed to realize. In this particular work, Pasolini portrayed a character spiritually torn apart, living the tragic conflict between sanctity – considered as freedom, love and joy – and priesthood, seen as a oppression and moralism. Pasolini expresses a strong attraction to Paul’s “holiness”, but strongly criticize him as a “priest”. Saint Paul was the founder of the Christian Church, opposed by Pasolini as an Establishment, which has falsifies history for the need of achieving power and control society.
In his idea for the film, Pasolini was thinking of transferring the story, both geographically and temporally. He tells the various episodes of the Apostle’s life, making continuous personal and poetic references: visions of the past come to surface, full of complex psychological unsolved remorses, as if Pasolini wanted to transfer his obsessions and even his perspectives in this exemplary story. Thus, also the performance highlights those aspects of the story that seem to create a link between crucial moments of both lives, from “enlightenment” to “martyrdom”. The starting point is offered by the screenplay. Initially, the various scenes are sober and short, showing only the key steps of the events narrated. Gradually the visions become more theatrical, repeating and expanding, revealing details that characterize the personalities of Saint Paul and of Pasolini. In its development, the performance also touches on those ironic and allegoric elements that can be seen in many works of Pasolini, especially in some of his movies.
The study of Pasolini’s works has led the group to develop almost an imaginary dialogue with this author, going to seek the answers in the screenplay on Saint Paul, but also in other important texts such as Lutheran Letters, Pirate Writings, as well as many other plays, films and novels. What binds these fragments together is that they all revolve around two particular topics of Pasolini’s ideas, which seem to us still very relevant today: “the relationship with the sacred” and “the alarm for the anthropological mutation” of society. The dramatic structure of the performance is composed almost like a fresco, made of many layers and details. From the totality of the composition, gradually emerge some of the aspects of Pasolini’s ideas and of his personality that make him one of the most relevant and universal Italian contemporary artists and intellectuals.