| Teatro Stabile delle Marche Prodotto/Product by Mark Ravenhill translation by Giorgio Amitrano with Carlo Cecchi and Antonia Truppo directed by Carlo Cecchi "What led me to write "Product" was an impulse that I shared with many other writers: the need to find a voice for that emotional and intellectual scenery that had changed after September 11, beginning a new era - that of the so-called - "clash of civilizations" - "the war against terror". (...) I was interested in the way we were redefining ourselves as Westerners while we were creating the "Muslim" as the new "Other" Mark Ravenhill Hollywood films, often with ridiculous conceit, aim at being our modern myths: so this seemed like the perfect way to explore how new stereotypes and new icons are created. (Mark Ravenhill - Introduction, Methuen Drama 2008) Mark Ravenhill (June 7, 1966) is a British playwright, actor and journalist. He studied English Literature and Drama at Bristol University. After graduating in 1987, he began working as a freelance director and drama teacher. In 1997 he became director of a new literary society, the Plaines Plough. In 2003, when Nicholas Hytner becomes artistic director at the Royal National Theatre in London, Ravenhill became part of his advisory team. His most famous theatrical works are Shopping and Fucking (1996), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999) and Mother Clap´s Molly House (2001). His début as an actor was in 2005 at the Fringe Festival of Edinburgh with the monologue Product. He often writes for the cultural pages of The Guardian. | Product by Mark Ravenhill, is a 45-minute monologue, a dark and funny tale that sees the author-actor projecting the complex anxiety which surrounds global terrorism, into the glossy world of cinema. The show reveals the drama behind the new image of terrorism emerging in our society, especially when told by an alarmist press. Product is not only a satire on our attitudes after the September 11 attacks, but also a careful reflection on the limits of the language in capturing contemporary reality. Despite being considered, along with Sarah Kane, one of the most innovative playwrights of the 90s, Ravenhill is very respectful of the historical theater and in a recent interview stated that he would like to see contemporary directors focus more on the classics and stop producing new plays that have little substance. The actor and director Carlo Cecchi, since 1968, the year of the foundation of his own theater, has directed many shows and performed many roles. We recall: The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Misanthrope by Molière (with translations by Cesare Garboli) Woyzek and Leonce and Lena by Büchner, The Bathhouse by Majakovski, Man, Beast and Virtue by Pirandello, Pinter´s The Birthday , Endgame by Beckett and Shakespeare many times, including a trilogy: Hamlet, A Midsummer Night´s Dream, Measure for Measure. Since 2006 he has been an artist of reference for the Teatro Stabile delle Marche; with him the company has staged Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello (a four-year tour on stage even to Paris and Berlin), Moliere´s Tartuffe, the diptych Claus Peymann buys a pair of pants and comes to eat with me by Thomas Bernhard / Sik-Sik the magical maker by Eduardo de Filippo and A Midsummer Night´s Dream by William Shakespeare. |
