La stanza del tramonto
A Brother and Sister rediscover one another after years of separation, behind the closed door of a hospital room; in the half-light, the breathing and singing of their dying mother can be heard. We are at a frontier – anyone can see that. The body that has generated you disappears: the end is a mythical act, and yet it is also so everyday, a moment like so many others, that takes place on a given day, at a certain time.
The opening scene has elements of hyperrealism: a grey wall simulates a hospital ward, crushing the two actors towards the public, under the light of neon lamps. And yet, there is a metaphysical symbiosis with what is taking place over there: the intermittence of consciousness and perception, ravings, seeing voices, speaking with the ghosts of childhood. In a game of dialogues and conflicts, recollections and visions, the two siblings chase one another, observe one another, vie for their mother’s body, each wishing to bring it back to their own home. The language is surreal and at times amused, restoring the truth of this situation – a situation so common, yet at the same time bizarre.
Suddenly, the set opens; the mother dissolves, the wall is drawn to the background and we are projected to an interior landscape, with tones of Caravaggio: faint bursts of light, an abandoned crystal chandelier, ashes falling from above, the whistling wind, the sound of a far-off radio. This is the surreal place/home to which the sister welcomes her sick brother, a year after their mother’s death. Here, the two orphans gradually build the landscapes of their sunset, they dress up and change into one another, crossing through portents of beauty and abandonment. Far from the hospital wards strictly subdivided into women and men, they rediscover the elementary ritual of care, of “when mammals licked their own wounds.” He undertakes a saving descent into the feminine, until, together, they finally open the mythical closed door – which they now own – and disappear into a blazing sunset.
La stanza del tramonto, the result of the collaboration of an artistic staff coming together for the first time on this occasion, is a creation on the themes of the End, and of Care.
It is adapted from an original work by Lina Prosa – a Palermo author currently enjoying a season of great international success – for Accademia Mutamenti, after being workshopped with the actors and director.
It has also benefitted from the artistic collaboration of Claudia Sorace and Riccardo Fazi, from the company Muta Imago, whose particular vision of the relationship between drama and scenic space is matched with the acting talents of Sara Donzelli and Giampaolo Gotti.
La stanza del tramonto
Notes on the ordinary life of a mammal
By Lina Prosa
With Sara Donzelli and Giampaolo Gotti
Dramaturgy and scenic space by Claudia Sorace and Riccardo Fazi / Muta Imago
Costumes by Marco Caboni
Directed by Giorgio Zorcù
Text translated into the French by Jean-Paul Manganaro
Productions
La camera di sangue
Le baccanti
A window onto the irrational, onto an ancient world of authentic expressive liberty, of Dionysian possession.
Anelante
In a space without volume, the flat wall closes from sight the ritual meat that explodes and rebels
Site specific
For Xenia, saying “site-specific” means, above all, listening to places.
Pinturas
There is an old Italian saying that like chickens coming home to roost, all knots are snagged by the comb: knots to be unravelled, that keep entire generations.