Productions

Dichiaro guerra al tempo

Two women lie, having sunken into the abysses of time – one in the Elizabethan era, and the other in the present day.
They live in the same room. They do not see one another. They do not speak to one another directly. But surely, they feel one another.
It is the room of memory. Everywhere, there are manuscripts, poems, perpetual words, music parts. The poems are William Shakespeare’s.
One can get lost in the room of the Bard’s imagination. There are few objects; space is dense, traversed by whispers and forgotten voices, memories of ancient interpretations, shadows in transit, and glaring reflections of light. The poet is the tireless witness of a world no longer there – a reality built with dedication, faith, expressive power, seriousness, competence, and unshakable values.
The poet frequents the future in everyday life; he strives for truth, swoons, trembles, and faints for an instant – and in that instant, elaborates universes, dreams the infinite, and attempts to decipher its grammar. This is what Shakespeare’s writing is: writing that lives and breathes, outlined in the subconscious of its interpreters. This is what his poetry is.
This traveller of illusion and dream speaks a crystal language, grappling with every possible reality, every form of betrayal. And, as if from the bottom of a well, he takes pains to speak to all men still “alive,” through verses that speak to us of the fears of an old man, of the nightmares of a king left alone by his daughters, of a queen’s nights of lovemaking, of the struggles of a young prince, of the thoughts of a great general… The room that houses this man has large walls of smoke that suffer from the inherent instability of dreams, changing continuously.
Precisely because he is a “divine instrument,” precisely because he dialogues with angels, the Poet is not required merely to provide diversion for us in the true sense of the word (di-vertere = “to turn in a different direction”); he also has the possibility of helping us rediscover our lost grace, our innocence, so long yearned for and mourned, inexorably erased by the cynicism and superficiality of our daily lives.
Two women thus begin a dialogue without end, in which, from two different dimensions, they ask themselves again and again about the true nature of love, at the boundary between love and friendship.
Where does the difference between passionate and ideal love lie? When can we speak of elective affinities?
In his sonnets, Shakespeare investigates love in all its possible facets. And love itself thus becomes the perfect instrument for knowing ourselves, others, the world, poetry, beauty, and transience.
In this infinite conversation, the play of sentiments is deeply experienced, leading the two women to observe, with the sweetest compassion, the fatal transience of our own earthly time.
Because it is Time, with its deception, its horror, its splendour, that represents that great theme of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Love and Time. Both transient. Both infinite.
And we are always at war. With both.

DICHIARO GUERRA AL TEMPO
From the Sonnets of William Shakespeare

With Manuela Kustermann and Melania Giglio
Costumes by Anna Mode and Silvia Aimonino
Music by Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, Cat Stevens
Lighting by Valerio Geroldi
Supervised by Daniele Salvo