| La Modestia - Modesty by Rafael Spregelburd
director Luca Ronconi
with Maria Paiato, Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Francesca Ciocchetti
Costumes made by the Costume Shop of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan - Teatro d′Europa Scenes produced by the Scenography Laboratory "Bruno Colombo and Leonardo Ricchelli" of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan - Teatro d′Europa Sound effects produced by the Audio/Video Department of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan - Teatro d′Europa prop assistant Mario Gaiaschi head sceneshifter Matteo Benini sceneshifter Alessio Rongione head electrician Eugenio Squeri a coproduction Santacristina Centro Teatrale, Festival dei Due Mondi di Spoleto, MittelFest - Cividale del Friuli
& Piccolo Teatro di Milano Santacristina Centro Teatrale, il Festival dei Due Mondi di Spoleto, MittelFest - Cividale del Friuli and il Piccolo Teatro di Milano have produced a show by Rafael Spregelburd, one of the most prominent and influential figures on the contemporary Argentine scene, belonging to the post-dictatorship generation. At the age of forty, he is the the author of over thirty plays, translated and staged in South America, Europe, USA; he is a director, actor, essayist and translator. The project "Eptalogia of Hieronymus Bosch" originates in 1996. Spregelburd is inspired by the tabletop painting of The Seven Deadly Sins by Hieronymus Bosch and intends to write seven short works, which will represent the dissolution of modern morality, just like Bosch′s painting depicts the dissolution of the medieval morality on the threshold of a still undefined Humanism.
| The seven works that comprise the Eptalogia have titles which point out seven contemporary sins, with an interior, often playful and sarcastic, which corresponds to the traditional sins: Loss of appetite (Lust); Extravagance (Envy); Modesty (Pride); Stupidity (Greed); Panic (Sloth); Paranoia (Gluttony); Stubbornness (Rage). Rather than a replacement or conversion, it appears to be a summation, with the aim of merging space and time contained in the reading of the universe using the complexity theory, which is very widely referred to by Spregelburd: we inherit the seven from the past and we generate seven new ones. "Luca Ronconi stages Modesty, one of the most ambitious and refined works of the Eptalogia, which opens the Theater section of the Festival. The Modesty cast includes special appearances by four exceptional interpreters of Italian theater: Paolo Pierobon, Maria Paiato, Fausto Russo Alesi and Francesca Ciocchetti, led by director Luca Ronconi through multiple changes of role and character, and the interplay between the two different stage situations mentioned in Spregelburd′s text. The scene in fact takes place in an only venue, a normal middle-class apartment where, in continuity, without any passing of time from one scene to another, the four actors play two roles that correspond to two independent stories that take place in different times and places: Argentina today and an East European country, any of the ones from the past Soviet empire. In common, on the scene, according to the classical mechanism of mysteries, we have the appearance of some evidence like a gun or a mysterious box that bring us to the final outburst which, due to a short circuit, destroys the apartment. Extraordinary opportunity for the actors who must deal with different characters and different worlds, not only interpreting them, but living a "wrongfooting" that constantly questions them, virtually entering Spregelburg′s story as a further sign of our crisis" Rafael Spregelburd |
