(from www.art-o.net )
Deadline # 28. Forms of art captured live on Italian Tales of John Turturro
Igor Vazzaz
A curtain of white cloth, explained on threads drawn from the boxes of old tub: solar image and common people of Italy that, from overseas, it preserves the colors of an archaic cheerful poverty ever scrollatasi off, in the imagination of children and grandchildren of those who faced the emigration. It happens, however, that in Italy go back, and celebrated, by artists to honor the three hundredth anniversary of Carignano in Turin, in a production that involves Marcido Marcidorjs and Famous Mimosa a. It is a further tribute to the roots, after These ghosts! Eduardo ( Souls of Naples, directed by Roman Paska) of 2005, John Turturro tables homegrown crowd again, this time taking on the responsibilities as well as director and co-author of drama. His colorful
Italian Folktales , inspired by the collections of Calvin , Basile and Pitrè represents an interesting test case for reasons that go beyond a show of modest education conducted dall'italoamericano and that nell'insoddisfatta reception from critics and public, raises a number of issues that are worth analyzing.
The staging: dramatic pastiche, patch of nine short stories in a composite play of the imagination, actors (Turturro's company, with the addition of some Italians) to divide fans of characters and alternating d ' atmosphere in one area, the scene is well crafted from Caramel Giammello while earthy plain, beach, sea and elsewhere metaphysical fairy encounters. Two major events, and actors Antonio Francesco - children together to misfortunes, but the opposite of genius ( Max Casella and Jess Barbagallo o) - are the leitmotif of an exhibition that if, on the one hand, offers a reading of Calvino's fable of the function (the incipit with that from the bottom of the pit Turturro quotes verbatim the introduction of writer in the collection of '56), the other is missing almost all of making the bitter complexity, scratch that blood is part of our same fabulous view. A little valid evidence of the good performers, the refinement stage objects Daniela Dal Cin, a delicacy that overall it is a sign of respect, intelligence and restraint.
Issues di varia entità: a livello teatrale, la drammaturgia è pesante, lenta e, forse, la cosa non dovrebbe sorprendere. Grande attore sul grande schermo, Turturro non è autore in senso stretto: prove registiche alla mano, difetta per autorità narrativa, figurativa, strutturale, tratto principe degli amici Coen, per citare un esempio. Le sue pellicole, si pensi all’ultimo Romance & Cigarettes (2005), benché siano gradevoli, vivono d’intuizioni e trovate senza raggiungere mai lo statuto d’oggetti filmici conchiusi. Costringere in un piano unitario nove fiabe è impresa ad alto coefficiente di rischio, necessitante di tutt’altra maestria dramatic: a Shakespeare, not a Turturro.
The lack of fluidity is also burdened by the linguistic Babel scene: American actors who speak in English (translated by supertitles) and an Italian dirty, sometimes incomprehensible Italian performers suspended between southern dialects and the national language, blend in interesting power, double the difficulty of grappling with the plurality Calvin dialect of the Italian repertoire, but soon spills into chaos idiomatic, compelling eyes and ears to bounce between stage and screen translations, up to compromise taste and attention.
The most compelling, however, is another: what is fair to ask a un artista americano che si cimenta con le fiabe italiane? E quali possono essere i suoi scopi poetici nell’allestire uno spettacolo del genere?
L’Atlantico è assai più breve andando da est a ovest che in direzione opposta. Per quanto distorte, mai del tutto veritiere e sempre discutibili, le informazioni che in Italia si hanno degli Usa sono maggiori di quelle che di noi parlano agli americani, specie in ambito artistico. Gli ultimi film italici di maggior diffusione negli States sono stati La vita è bella e il Pinocchio benignesco, entrambi pensati appositamente per pubblico e critica stelle e strisce. La stessa cattività hollywoodiana di Muccino corrisponde all’americanizzazione di un nostro director more than any, minimum Italianization of their cinema.
There, in the eye of Americans facing out, a congenital defect, a tare, consisting of guilty innocence and simplicity (confirmed by their foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office) and fed to the cliché that reality of contemporary communication does not detract little or no point. And so, for how intelligent an artist Turturro, for years regulars Italy, the beautiful country, seen through the distorting lens of poetry and stories, is always the shabby poverty of a bleak and earthy white cloths and lying in the sun .
Ci vedono, e ci leggono, così.
S’aggiunga un altro dato fondamentale e che spiega la faticata fruizione d’una drammaturgia, quella dello spettacolo turturriano, non esente da intoppi: che rapporto abbiamo, oggi, con le nostre fiabe?
Sono ancora lette o partecipano di un retroterra culturale a perdere, sostituite nell’immaginario da cartoni animati, americani o giapponesi, che ignorano del tutto le nostre origini? Fiabe italiane presuppone la conoscenza del materiale originale, pena lo smarrirsi tra filoni narrativi, personaggi disparati, peraltro resi da un numero limitato d’attori, ognuno alle prese con più caratteri. Le storie scelte da Turturro non hanno lo stesso valore iconico di un’Alice carroliana (pensiamo a Disney, ma anche al prossimo Tim Burton), di Cenerentola o di Biancaneve: sono narrazioni seppellite in una memoria occidente, inclini al silenzio, ben oltre il semplice rischio di non parlarci più. È un repertorio perduto, il cui ricupero necessiterebbe d’un lavoro ulteriore rispetto alla semplice (e imperfetta) traslazione scenica. Inevitabile, quindi, la necessità d’un costrutto drammatico assai più forte e d’una pratica teatrale più prossima alle attese della nostra sensibilità. Non sosteniamo che il teatro debba essere necessariamente localistico, tutt’altro: ma è evidente come l’operazione Turturro was worm-eaten at the root of a considerable number of issues, all fairly predictable.
The further question to ask then is: who should contact the show? Due to the client, the answer seems obvious: the Italian public. The trim is not yet told us about, and consonant with the public and critical reception testifies. In this sense, it will be interesting to see the warmth of New York Italian folktales : It is possible that, with another recipient, the "message" can acquire renewed vitality and different way. Regarding the Italian replicas (in Milan and at the Streheler Mercadante di Napoli) difficult imagine a real increase in performance, as the limits do not seem glimpsed for prospective problems of a mechanism to break in, in terms of structural defects that are impossible to circumvent.
Yet Italian Folktales will, unlike some, a show I remember: we are sure of this and it is legitimate to ask why.
Like the viewers who have assisted us with the vision, we recorded emotion, respect, breathless. But we also shared expressions unconvinced at the end of play, the bitter reviews, the widespread concern hovering in the golden hall of Carignano. We'll remember
Italian folktales primarily for one reason only: the size of event, direct contact with a movie star, the otherworldly nature represented by the presence of a star, star, however, unrelated to the universe mainstream disliked certain snobbery ours, but, rather, participant of a constellation of actors in a popular cinema and caught at the same time, a paradigm that the United States cultivated with much greater ease than is the case in Italy.
And although the theater retains its essence a form of expression residual problem, necessarily political, ephemeral, linked to the physical presence and, therefore, the tetragonal mass communication, Turturro is the case in all respects a kind of encroachment, of fine drift towards the sensational, scientific use of the Societe du Spectacle that offers no escape or chance to escape.
This is not mere provincialism, criticism from more than one observer of the show and the entire operation, but of a weak point, perhaps still underestimated, a cultural system that has lost himself, both as regards their archetypal narratives (the now unknown tales of Calvino, and Basile Pitre) and pitfalls in need of a tire at a time of crisis and often half-empty rooms, to identify effective strategies to create interest, curiosity and attention than their proposals. Please contact John Turturro, an artist who we love and respect, is therefore the litmus test of a fragile productive and creative when it seems inevitable, and perhaps useful discussion, without hiding behind the sort of encouraging numbers of tickets sold.
(February 12, 2010)
Entertainment
Italian Folktales ( Italian folktales )
freely inspired by the Italian Folktales Italo Calvino of and tales of Giambattista Basile and written by Giuseppe Pitre Katherine Borowitz, Carl Capotorto, John Turturro and Max Casella
with:
Jess Barbagallo (Francesco) Katherine Borowitz (Mother, Queen of the Fairies Lake Creno Princess, the Crone), Max Casella (Antonio), Richard Easton (Elder, Orc, Dragon, Drunk), Erika
Reason (Death, Player, Beggar), Aurora Quattrocchi (Grandma, Fata), Giuliano Scarpinato (Devil, Dr. Pancrazio, Francesco's brother), Aida Turturro (Zia, Fairy Marina, Hag, Antoinette), Diego Turturro (boy, landlord's daughter, Rod), John Turturro (Prince Crab , Oste, Prince Bel)
Director: John Turturro
scenes: Carmelo Giammello
costumes and props: Daniela Dal Cin
lights: Luca Bronze
live music performed by the Company Artistic The Paranza of Gecko, which Campa Simone (vocals, guitar, swing, flutes, traditional percussion), Sergio Caputo (violin, mandolin, mandola) and Angelo Palma (vocals, guitar)
assistant director: Paola Rota
assistant art director: Emanuele Vicentini
collaboration with Marcido Marcidorjs and Famosa Mimosa, OPEN DOOR
soprattitoli in Italian by Florence Studio in Prescott, translation: Scarlett Bernascone
manufactured by Fondazione del Teatro Stabile di Torino / Teatro Stabile di Napoli with the support of MIBAC
Igor Vazzaz
Italian Folktales , inspired by the collections of Calvin , Basile and Pitrè represents an interesting test case for reasons that go beyond a show of modest education conducted dall'italoamericano and that nell'insoddisfatta reception from critics and public, raises a number of issues that are worth analyzing.
The staging: dramatic pastiche, patch of nine short stories in a composite play of the imagination, actors (Turturro's company, with the addition of some Italians) to divide fans of characters and alternating d ' atmosphere in one area, the scene is well crafted from Caramel Giammello while earthy plain, beach, sea and elsewhere metaphysical fairy encounters. Two major events, and actors Antonio Francesco - children together to misfortunes, but the opposite of genius ( Max Casella and Jess Barbagallo o) - are the leitmotif of an exhibition that if, on the one hand, offers a reading of Calvino's fable of the function (the incipit with that from the bottom of the pit Turturro quotes verbatim the introduction of writer in the collection of '56), the other is missing almost all of making the bitter complexity, scratch that blood is part of our same fabulous view. A little valid evidence of the good performers, the refinement stage objects Daniela Dal Cin, a delicacy that overall it is a sign of respect, intelligence and restraint.
The lack of fluidity is also burdened by the linguistic Babel scene: American actors who speak in English (translated by supertitles) and an Italian dirty, sometimes incomprehensible Italian performers suspended between southern dialects and the national language, blend in interesting power, double the difficulty of grappling with the plurality Calvin dialect of the Italian repertoire, but soon spills into chaos idiomatic, compelling eyes and ears to bounce between stage and screen translations, up to compromise taste and attention.
The most compelling, however, is another: what is fair to ask a un artista americano che si cimenta con le fiabe italiane? E quali possono essere i suoi scopi poetici nell’allestire uno spettacolo del genere?
L’Atlantico è assai più breve andando da est a ovest che in direzione opposta. Per quanto distorte, mai del tutto veritiere e sempre discutibili, le informazioni che in Italia si hanno degli Usa sono maggiori di quelle che di noi parlano agli americani, specie in ambito artistico. Gli ultimi film italici di maggior diffusione negli States sono stati La vita è bella e il Pinocchio benignesco, entrambi pensati appositamente per pubblico e critica stelle e strisce. La stessa cattività hollywoodiana di Muccino corrisponde all’americanizzazione di un nostro director more than any, minimum Italianization of their cinema.
There, in the eye of Americans facing out, a congenital defect, a tare, consisting of guilty innocence and simplicity (confirmed by their foreign policy, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office) and fed to the cliché that reality of contemporary communication does not detract little or no point. And so, for how intelligent an artist Turturro, for years regulars Italy, the beautiful country, seen through the distorting lens of poetry and stories, is always the shabby poverty of a bleak and earthy white cloths and lying in the sun .
Ci vedono, e ci leggono, così.
Sono ancora lette o partecipano di un retroterra culturale a perdere, sostituite nell’immaginario da cartoni animati, americani o giapponesi, che ignorano del tutto le nostre origini? Fiabe italiane presuppone la conoscenza del materiale originale, pena lo smarrirsi tra filoni narrativi, personaggi disparati, peraltro resi da un numero limitato d’attori, ognuno alle prese con più caratteri. Le storie scelte da Turturro non hanno lo stesso valore iconico di un’Alice carroliana (pensiamo a Disney, ma anche al prossimo Tim Burton), di Cenerentola o di Biancaneve: sono narrazioni seppellite in una memoria occidente, inclini al silenzio, ben oltre il semplice rischio di non parlarci più. È un repertorio perduto, il cui ricupero necessiterebbe d’un lavoro ulteriore rispetto alla semplice (e imperfetta) traslazione scenica. Inevitabile, quindi, la necessità d’un costrutto drammatico assai più forte e d’una pratica teatrale più prossima alle attese della nostra sensibilità. Non sosteniamo che il teatro debba essere necessariamente localistico, tutt’altro: ma è evidente come l’operazione Turturro was worm-eaten at the root of a considerable number of issues, all fairly predictable.
The further question to ask then is: who should contact the show? Due to the client, the answer seems obvious: the Italian public. The trim is not yet told us about, and consonant with the public and critical reception testifies. In this sense, it will be interesting to see the warmth of New York Italian folktales : It is possible that, with another recipient, the "message" can acquire renewed vitality and different way. Regarding the Italian replicas (in Milan and at the Streheler Mercadante di Napoli) difficult imagine a real increase in performance, as the limits do not seem glimpsed for prospective problems of a mechanism to break in, in terms of structural defects that are impossible to circumvent.
Yet Italian Folktales will, unlike some, a show I remember: we are sure of this and it is legitimate to ask why. Like the viewers who have assisted us with the vision, we recorded emotion, respect, breathless. But we also shared expressions unconvinced at the end of play, the bitter reviews, the widespread concern hovering in the golden hall of Carignano. We'll remember
Italian folktales primarily for one reason only: the size of event, direct contact with a movie star, the otherworldly nature represented by the presence of a star, star, however, unrelated to the universe mainstream disliked certain snobbery ours, but, rather, participant of a constellation of actors in a popular cinema and caught at the same time, a paradigm that the United States cultivated with much greater ease than is the case in Italy.
And although the theater retains its essence a form of expression residual problem, necessarily political, ephemeral, linked to the physical presence and, therefore, the tetragonal mass communication, Turturro is the case in all respects a kind of encroachment, of fine drift towards the sensational, scientific use of the Societe du Spectacle that offers no escape or chance to escape.
This is not mere provincialism, criticism from more than one observer of the show and the entire operation, but of a weak point, perhaps still underestimated, a cultural system that has lost himself, both as regards their archetypal narratives (the now unknown tales of Calvino, and Basile Pitre) and pitfalls in need of a tire at a time of crisis and often half-empty rooms, to identify effective strategies to create interest, curiosity and attention than their proposals. Please contact John Turturro, an artist who we love and respect, is therefore the litmus test of a fragile productive and creative when it seems inevitable, and perhaps useful discussion, without hiding behind the sort of encouraging numbers of tickets sold.
(February 12, 2010)
Entertainment
Italian Folktales ( Italian folktales )
freely inspired by the Italian Folktales Italo Calvino of and tales of Giambattista Basile and written by Giuseppe Pitre Katherine Borowitz, Carl Capotorto, John Turturro and Max Casella
with:
Jess Barbagallo (Francesco) Katherine Borowitz (Mother, Queen of the Fairies Lake Creno Princess, the Crone), Max Casella (Antonio), Richard Easton (Elder, Orc, Dragon, Drunk), Erika
Reason (Death, Player, Beggar), Aurora Quattrocchi (Grandma, Fata), Giuliano Scarpinato (Devil, Dr. Pancrazio, Francesco's brother), Aida Turturro (Zia, Fairy Marina, Hag, Antoinette), Diego Turturro (boy, landlord's daughter, Rod), John Turturro (Prince Crab , Oste, Prince Bel)
Director: John Turturro
scenes: Carmelo Giammello
costumes and props: Daniela Dal Cin
lights: Luca Bronze
live music performed by the Company Artistic The Paranza of Gecko, which Campa Simone (vocals, guitar, swing, flutes, traditional percussion), Sergio Caputo (violin, mandolin, mandola) and Angelo Palma (vocals, guitar)
assistant director: Paola Rota
assistant art director: Emanuele Vicentini
collaboration with Marcido Marcidorjs and Famosa Mimosa, OPEN DOOR
soprattitoli in Italian by Florence Studio in Prescott, translation: Scarlett Bernascone
manufactured by Fondazione del Teatro Stabile di Torino / Teatro Stabile di Napoli with the support of MIBAC
