MEDITERRANEAN ENSEMBLE

9 September 2022 19:50  /  Press  /  , , , , ,
MEDITERRANEAN ENSEMBLE

TOWARDS A MEDITERRANEAN ENSEMBLE

The dramaturge Eva-Maria Bertschy in conversation with director Simone Mannino and actor Jamel Madani

EMB When we started working on Prometeo, you told me about the idea of founding a Mediterranean ensemble in Palermo. You’ve been on the road a lot as a set designer, artist, director, all over Europe, in Turkey, in Russia, but this would be a project worth committing to in the city where you grew up. You want to build something here. How do you envisage that?

SM When Peter Brook founded the global Ensemble and the Centre international de Re- cherche théâtrale back then, he was in a crisis. He asked himself the question: Why theatre? So he set out on a two-year journey with an ensemble of actors from differ- ent cultures to explore this question and confront new forms of theatre. When they returned from the trip, they had used up all their money. Peter Brook and his wife then travelled to the USA, where they met a millionaire who gave them a few millions. They were thus able to build Le Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, in an old theatre à l’italienne that had been empty for years and was totally run down.

That’s about how I imagine it: the search is in the journey and the question is always the same. There are many unused theatres in Palermo that could be suitable. I already have my eye on one, of course. All I need now is to find a millionaire. (He laughs.) The question of financing is central of course. You can’t do anything without money. And in southern Italy, cultural subsidies are less generous than in Germany or France.

JM That’s exactly why you should consider whether you would perhaps prefer to found the Mediterranean ensemble in Tunisia. Tunis would be a good place for it. I’m not say- ing that because I grew up there and love this city. But because in Tunis you can do much more with little money. Everything is much more expensive here and people still earn very little. At the same time, Tunisia is one of the only countries in the Arab region where there is subsidised theatre and the government is actually interested in culture.

EMB Does the Mediterranean Ensemble need a location at all?

SM It doesn’t necessarily need a location. In my mind, however, it is important for it to be lo- cated somewhere. Palermo seems interesting to me because of its geographical loca- tion in the centre of the Mediterranean. And also because Sicily never really belonged to Europe and Tunisia was always closer than the north of Italy. At the centre of the Mediterranean ensemble, however, is not so much a place as an association of artists, i.e. actors from all the countries around the Mediterranean. “A strange sight, to scrape the seabed and see bodies raining down on you. I have seen millions of them, swimming over Tunis, Palermo, Alexandria, Marseille, Algiers, Athens, Beirut, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Tangier, Tripoli…”, says Prometheus in our play. It is a matter of developing a common theatrical language, and perhaps even a Mediterranean theatrical circuit.

EMB We took a first step with Prometeo by asking actors from Tunisia and Italy to participate.

SM Of course, that brings with it the very pragmatic difficulty that we have to communi- cate in one language in rehearsals. And then there is the question of which language we speak to the audience. We have only become accustomed to watching theatre from other linguistic areas since we started regularly using surtitles in the theatre. In “Prometeo”, the actors speak Italian and Arabic on stage. It wasn’t that complicated to find actors in Tunisia who also speak Italian. Tunisians have a lot more connections to Italy than you might think at first.

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PROMETEO | Il canguro azzurro

26 August 2021 18:21  /  News  /  , , ,
PROMETEO | Il canguro azzurro

As part of the international project BETWEEN LAND & SEA 2021- 2023
STUDIO PREVIEW | SALA GRANDE TEATRO BIONDO
PALERMO 22 and 23 October 2021

PROMETHEUS | The blue kangaroo
based on a tragedy of AESCHYLUS
Adaptation | Direction and Scenography SIMONE MANNINO
With JAMEL MADANI | AYMEN MABROUK | GIORGIO COPPONE | MARIEM SAYEH
Texts LORENZO MARSILI
Dramaturgical advice EVA-MARIA BERTSCHY
Original music and Sound design GAETANO DRAGOTTA
Costume design PHILIPPE BERSON
Technical direction JESSE GAGLIARDI
Stage manager GIULIANA DI GREGORIO
Assistant costume designer SHARY TADDEI
Costume production SARTORIA PIPI
Set collaborators RICCARDO BRUGNONE | VITTORIO PITRELLI | ANDREA MANNINO | PABLO CRICHTON
Assistant director ALESSANDRO PANTORNO
Translation into Arabic PATRIZIA SPALLINO | PAOLO LA MANTIA | YOUSRA HADDAWI
Production management GIOVANNA LA BARBERA
Distribution VALENTINA BERTOLINO
Communication ROSSELLA PUCCIO
Production ATELIER NOSTRA SIGNORA
Co-production THEATER BREMEN | TEATRO BIONDO DI PALERMO | With the support of KULTURSTIFTUNG DES BUNDES | Promoted by STUDIO RIZOMA

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