Category Archives: teatro

Appunti per Capsula Petri n.16

Nella foto, Deborah Lee nel Carlos

One (criticist) is tempted to put the blame on the performance. But the important thing is to learn something. After raving about the performance, the possibility remains that there was a little or nothing to perform… A theatre without action or characters ought to be within the range of human interests. Not as a new thing – a source of new sensations, purposely, only; but naturally, normally. Why not? But no, as we say: the theatre is a definite thing; a play has form and requirements, like a sonnet – there must be passion, development, and so on.

Wallace Stevens al suo editore, Harriet Monroe, in una lettera del 31 ottobre 1917, in cui allega diversi articoli di critici a proposito della rappresentazione della sua opera teatrale Carlos among the candles.

.-.-.-.-.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936).  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.  1912–22.
Carlos Among the Candles
By Wallace Stevens
The stage is indistinguishable when the curtain rises.
The room represented is semi-circular. In the center, at the back, is a large round window, covered by long curtains. There is a door at the right and one at the left. Farther forward on the stage there are two long, low, wooden tables, one at the right and one at the left. The walls and the curtains over the window are of a dark reddish-purple, with a dim pattern of antique gold.
Carlos is an eccentric pedant of about forty. He is dressed in black. He wears close-fitting breeches and a close-fitting, tightly-buttoned, short coat with long tails. His hair is rumpled. He leaps upon the stage through the door at the right. Nothing is visible through the door. He has a long thin white lighted taper, which he holds high above his head as he moves, fantastically, over the stage, examining the room in which he finds himself.
When he has completed examining the room, he tip-toes to the table at the right and lights a single candle at the edge of the table nearest the front of the stage. It is a thin black candle, not less than two feet high. All the other candles are like it. They give very little light.
He speaks in a lively manner, but is over-nice in sounding his words.
As the candle begins to burn, he steps back, regarding it. Nothing else is visible on the table.Carlos:
How the solitude of this candle penetrates me! I light a candle in the darkness. It fills the darkness with solitude, which becomes my own. I become a part of the solitude of the candle … of the darkness flowing over the house and into it… This room … and the profound room outside… Just to go through a door, and the change … the becoming a part, instantly, of that profounder room … and equally to feel it communicating, with the same persistency, its own mood, its own influence … and there, too, to feel the lesser influences of the shapes of things, of exhalations, sounds … to feel the mood of the candle vanishing and the mood of the special night coming to take its place…

[He sighs. After a pause he pirouettes, and then continues.]

  I was always affected by the grand style. And yet I have been thinking neither of mountains nor of morgues… To think of this light and of myself … it is a duty…. Is it because it makes me think of myself in other places in such a light … or of other people in other places in such a light? How true that is: other people in other places in such a light… If I looked in at that window and saw a single candle burning in an empty room … but if I saw a figure… If, now, I felt that there was someone outside… The vague influence … the influence that clutches… But it is not only here and now… It is in the morning … the difference between a small window and a large window … a blue window and a green window… It is in the afternoon and in the evening … in effects, so drifting, that I know myself to be incalculable, since the causes of what I am are incalculable…[He springs toward the table, flourishing his taper. At the end farthest from the front of the stage, he discovers a second candle, which he lights. He goes back to his former position.]
  The solitude dissolves… The light of two candles has a meaning different from the light of one … and an effect different from the effect of one… And the proof that that is so, is that I feel the difference… The associations have drifted a little and changed, and I have followed in this change… If I see myself in other places in such a light, it is not as I saw myself before. If I see other people in other places in such a light, the people and places are different from the people and places I saw before. The solitude is gone. It is as if a company of two or three people had just separated, or as if they were about to gather. These candles are too far apart.[He flourishes his taper above the table and finds a third candle in the center of it, which he lights.]
  And yet with only two candles it would have been a cold and respectable company; for the feeling of coldness and respectability persists in the presence of three, modified a little, as if a kind of stateliness had modified into a kind of elegance… How far away from the isolation of the single candle, as arrogant of the vacancy around it as three are arrogant of association… It is no longer as if a company had just separated. It is only as if it were about to gather … as if one were soon to forget the room because of the people in the room … people tempered by the lights around them, affected by the lights around them … sensible that one more candle would turn this formative elegance into formative luxury.[He lights a fourth candle. He indulges his humor.]
And the suggestion of luxury into the suggestion of magnificence.[He lights a fifth candle.]         5
And the beginning of magnificence into the beginning of splendor.[He lights a sixth candle. He sighs deeply.]
  In how short a time have I been solitary, then respectable—in a company so cold as to be stately, then elegant, then conscious of luxury, even magnificence; and now I come, gradually, to the beginning of splendor. Truly, I am a modern.[He dances around the room.]
  To have changed so often and so much … or to have been changed … to have been carried by the lighting of six candles through so many lives and to have been brought among so many people… This grows more wonderful. Six candles burn like an adventure that has been completed. They are established. They are a city … six common candles … seven…[He lights another, and another, until he has lighted twelve, saying after them, in turn:]
  Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.[Following this, he goes on tip-toe to the center of the stage, where he looks at the candles. Their brilliance has raised his spirits to the point of gaiety. He turns from the lighted table to face the dark one at the left. He holds his taper before him.]
  Darkness again … as if a night wind had come blowing … but too weakly to fling the cloth of darkness.[He goes to the window, draws one of the curtains a little and peers out. He sees nothing.]         10
  I had as lief look into night as look into the dark corner of a room. Darkness expels me.[He goes forward, holding his taper high above him, until he comes to the table at the left. He finds this covered with candles, like the table at the right, and lights them, with whimsical motions, one by one. When all the candles have been lighted, he runs to the center of the stage, holding his hands over his eyes. Then he returns to the window and flings aside the curtains. The light from the window falls on the tall stalks of flowers outside. The flowers are like hollyhocks, but they are unnaturally large, of gold and silver. He speaks excitedly.]
  Where now is my solitude and the lonely figure of solitude? Where now are the two stately ones that left their coldness behind them? They have taken their bareness with them. Their coldness has followed them. Here there will be silks and fans … the movement of arms … rumors of Renoir … coiffures … hands … scorn of Debussy … communications of body to body… There will be servants, as fat as plums, bearing pineapples from the Azores … because of twenty-four candles, burning together, as if their light had dispelled a phantasm, falling on silks and fans … the movement of arms… The pulse of the crowd will beat out the shallow pulses … it will fill me.[A strong gust of wind suddenly blows into the room, extinguishing several of the candles on the table at the left. He runs to the table at the left and looks, as if startled, at the extinguished candles. He buries his head in his arms.]
  That, too, was phantasm… The night wind came into the room… The fans are invisible upon the floor.[In a burst of feeling, he blows out all the candles that are still burning on the table at the left. He crosses the stage and stands before the table at the right. After a moment he goes slowly to the back of the stage and draws the curtains over the window. He returns to the table at the right.]
  What is there in the extinguishing of light? It is like twelve wild birds flying in autumn.[He blows out one of the candles.]
It is like an eleven-limbed oak tree, brass-colored in frost…. Regret…[He blows out another candle.]         15
It is like ten green sparks of a rocket, oscillating in air… The extinguishing of light … how closely regret follows it.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like the diverging angles that follow nine leaves drifting in water, and that compose themselves brilliantly on the polished surface.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like eight pears in a nude tree, flaming in twilight… The extinguishing of light is like that. The season is sorrowful. The air is cold.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like the six Pleiades, and the hidden one, that makes them seven.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like the seven Pleiades, and the hidden one, that makes them six.[He blows out another candle.]         20
  The extinguishing of light is like the five purple palmations of cinquefoil withering… It is full of the incipiencies of darkness … of desolation that rises as a feeling rises… Imagination wills the five purple palmations of cinquefoil. But in this light they have the appearance of withering… To feel and, in the midst of feeling, to imagine …[He blows out another candle.]
  The extinguishing of light is like the four posts of a cadaver, two at its head and two at its feet, to-wit: its arms and legs.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like three peregrins, departing.[He blows out another candle.]
It is like heaven and earth in the eye of the disbeliever.[He blows out another candle. He dances around the room. He returns to the single candle that remains burning.]
  The extinguishing of light is like that old Hesper, clapped upon by clouds.[He stands in front of the candle, so as to obscure it.]         25
The spikes of his light bristle around the edge of the bulk. The spikes bristle among the clouds and behind them. There is a spot where he was bright in the sky… It remains fixed a little in the mind.[He opens the door at the right. Outside, the night is as blue as water. He crosses the stage and opens the door at the left. Once more he flings aside the curtains. He extinguishes his taper. He looks out. He speaks with elation.]
  Oh, ho! Here is matter beyond invention.[He springs through the window. Curtain.]

.-.-.-.-.

Harriet Monroe alla scrivania

Appunti per CAPSULA PETRI n. 14

Racine diceva che la scena è un luogo che non c’è, in un tempo che si ignora, alle otto di sera, rischiarata da una candela di sego, e che non si ritrova più all’alba, qualsiasi sforzo si faccia per cercarla anche nel più lontano recesso delle viuzze della città in cui viviamo.

Pascal Quignard in Georges de la Tour, Pagine d’Arte

imitazione felice

Secondo la concezione primitiva, quella antica, la rappresentazione di un avvenimento favoloso o meraviglioso dovrebbe essere necessariamente non realistica; secondo la concezione qui seguita, importa l’evidenza della cosa rappresentata, evidenza che non si valuta affatto solo chiedendosi se alcunché di simile si sia mai veduto o sia credibile; noi chiamiamo per esempio imitazione felice della vita un quadro di Rembrandt che raffigura l’apparizione di Cristo a Emmaus, perché perfino chi non crede, colpito dall’evidenza di ciò che vede, è costretto ad accettare l’esperienza del fatto miracoloso.

da Studi su Dante, Erich Auerbach, Feltrinelli, trad.di Maria Luisa De Pieri Bonino

A Moscacieca (Serenata alle Furie) di Edda Gaber

 

Dal 27 Febbraio al 7 Marzo.
Solo 10 posti a sera.

Finché dura. La Casa è in vendita, ma finché c’è e non viene meno neppure la voglia di farci teatro, si continua. Dal 27 febbraio al 7 marzo 2015, alle 20,45 in punto, sarà di scena “A Moscacieca” (Serenata alle Furie) di Edda Gaber; con lei, Alessandra Caputo e Manuel Cascone. I costumi sono di Alessandro Lai, l’illuminazione di Gianni Melis. La sottoscrizione è 10 euro. Non più di 10 spettatori a sera, per una pièce itinerante in 240 metri quadri liberamente ispirata a Le tre sorelle di Anton Cechov, al Rione Monti.

Per info e prenotazioni 3345031679 oppure eddagaber@gmail.com
Indispensabile arrivare entro le 20 e 40: l’andata in scena è improrogabile.

ciò che resta del fuoco

teatro argentina 9 maggio 2013

giovedì 9 maggio 2013 ore 21.30

Teatro Argentina | ingresso libero

In memoria delle vittime delle persecuzioni naziste e dell’intolleranza razzista

un progetto del Teatro di Roma

realizzato da lacasadargilla e Muta Imago e il coinvolgimento di tutti i cittadini che vi parteciperanno

in collaborazione con il Master internazionale in didattica della Shoah – Università degli Studi RomaTre, RaiTeche, RaiStoria, RaiNews24 e Archivio Storico dell’Istituto Luce

e con le librerie
Assaggi, Fahrenheit 451, L’Argonauta Libri per viaggiare, Libreria delle Donne Roma Tuba, Libri Necessari,  Robin è Nero su Bianco, Serendipity, Simon Tanner, Tara,  Zafari

video proiezioni  Daniele Spanò

con la partecipazione del clarino di Gabriele Coen, del pianoforte di Alessandro Gwis e della voce di Miriam Meghnagi

Giovedì 9 maggio a partire dalle ore 21.30 il Teatro Argentina spalanca le porte ad una lunga notte dei libri, una chiamata collettiva per restituire voce e immagini a quella straordinaria letteratura che i nazisti hanno provato a cancellare con i roghi cominciati a Berlino negli anni ‘30. Come una diga per contenere la scomparsa dei libri e con essi delle storie e dei linguaggi, per non dimenticare e per ricordare: il 6 aprile del 1933 l’ufficio stampa per la propaganda dell’Associazione studentesca tedesca annunciò una campagna generalizzata contro i libri “ebraici” che “infettavano la nazione tedesca”.

 

La sera del 9 maggio – anche anniversario della nascita dell’Europa – al Teatro Argentina il pubblico non assisterà a uno spettacolo, piuttosto entrerà in una biblioteca abbandonata, un grande spazio messo a fuoco e sigillato – quel che resta di un teatro – la sala coperta di cellophane e cenere, con una grande pila di libri nel suo centro e tutt’intorno, sul palco e in platea, sedie tra libri e microfoni pronti all’uso. Sui palchetti, come tante scialuppe di salvataggio, alcune librerie indipendenti esporranno i loro libri salvati (i testi saranno quelli della “lista nera” dei nazisti bruciati durante i roghi degli anni ’30). Mentre all’esterno una video proiezione curata da Daniele Spanò rivestirà la facciata del Teatro Argentina. Così i cittadini diventeranno lettori ‘estemporanei’ chiamati a partecipare attivamente, e invitati ad entrare, ascoltare, selezionare e leggere alcune pagine dai libri della grande pila accatastata sul palcoscenico. Per tutta la notte chiunque potrà entrare in teatro, scegliere una pagina che si vuole salvare e leggerla a uno dei microfoni: perché leggendola per tutti permetterà di prolungarne la vita. Portatori delle parole ritrovate saranno anche alcuni attori, con la lettura de “I roghi dei libri” di Leo Lowenthal e alcune tra le pagine più belle di quella letteratura – come filo rosso della serata – accanto alle note del clarino di Gabriele Coen, del pianoforte di Alessandro Gwis, e della voce di Miriam Meghnagi, che accompagneranno la lettura dei libri “salvati ”.

 

teatro argentina 9 maggio 2013 nella scialuppa

alla stazione

Riproduzione in LEGO da Henri Cartier Bresson

Le gare St.-Lazare: una principessa che soffia e che fischia, con lo sguardo di un orologio. “Pour notre homme, – dice Jacques de Lacretelle – les fares sont vraiment des usines de rêves”. (Le rêveur parisienne, Nrf, 1927). Certo: oggi, nell’epoca dell’automobile e dell’aeroplano, non sono più che lente, ataviche mostruosità quelle che ancora giacciono fra i neri padiglioni, e quella desueta commedia dell’addio e dell’arrivederci, recitata sullo sfondo delle carrozze pullman, fa del binario un teatrino di provincia. Ancora una volta va in scena per noi il vecchio e consunto melodramma greco: Orfeo, Euridice ed Ermes alla stazione. Nella montagna di bagagli che la circonda si apre nel cunicolo roccioso, la cripta in cui ella s’inabissa quando l’ermetico capotreno, fissando gli occhi umidi di Orfeo,dà con la sua paletta il segnale di partenza, Solco doloroso dell’addio che, come il graffio di un vaso greco, guizza sui corpi dipinti degli dèi.

da I Passages di Parigi, Vol.I, – Casa di sogno, museo, terme, Walter Benjamin, Einaudi.