TOO LATE!
(antigone)contest #2
Only dim shadows emerge from the Antigone of the Living
Theatre, watched on tape because we were too young
then… and yet the Too late! that hypnotically echoed
among the chorus is so impressed in our memory that it is
now used as a title. The research on the
relationships/conflicts between generations started in
X(Ics) is now going on in the formula of a construction in
becoming: informal actions/performances meant as contests,
that is confrontations/clashes/dialogues on the
hypothetical representations of a shining Antigone of
today. An "impossible to forget image", that still
scandalizes for her swinging between genders and for the
uniqueness of her refusal to become a mother and a wife;
she is an isolated, almost inhuman figure: the first
Kantian in history. When she declares I admit I did it. I
won't deny that, she stresses her refusal to be forced to
denial by the language of Other-Creon… Her laying
claim to the action means making it public once again,
taking full responsibility for it for the second
time… even if it's too late. Biner called Antigone
"the tragedy of the too late", because all the characters
seem to act or mend their ways only after something
irreparable has happened.
Is it maybe too late for us too? Je me révolte, donc
nous sommes is the title given to contest #0, created at
the Chartreuse d’Avignon last spring: it is taken
from Camus, who spoke to the individual and knew that every
form of collective action had to be (and must be)
rethought, without surrendering to individualism.
In the "widespread gloom of the public sphere" the
opposition to Creon is based on the refusal to separate
action from the individual. And we like this. This is one
of the reasons why we choose an (Antigone) in brackets as
image-guide of our new "in motus" itinerary among the
revolts of contemporary times.
Tired of the emptiness of meaning, of swirling formalisms,
we are urged to think of a theatre that is also a proposal
of action, a weapon of “poetic-terrorism”,
perhaps anachronism, that surfs among thoughts, grinds up
what happens, sometimes smiles and sometimes gets furious,
sometimes gets lost – having nothing to lose –
always with the irreducible desire to stir up the feeling
of impotence that lives within us and the generations that
have followed us.
So TOO LATE! is the second contest, where
Silvia/Antigone/Haemon face Vladimir/Creon in a merciless
mechanism of expositions and challenges that deceitfully
amplify both power games between fathers and sons and those
of contemporary “New Dictators” who, hiding
behind the rhetoric of welfare and success achieved at all
costs, also try to tame the avowed disobedient ones
… While contest #1 was so focused on brotherhood
that Polynices/Benno Steinegger, in a split between being a
pacifist and a terrorist, accepted ambivalences from the
different exegesis, here the focus of this confrontation
are power relations: from the smallest everyday
intolerances to the degenerations of “The Fathers of
Media” who acts “for their children’
sake”…
The dialogues are generated by an almost situationist
dramatic itinerary which sets the actors to active
participation in the theoretical-practical debate on the
attempted staging: outside the comforting safety nets of
representation we lay bare the desire to “transform
outrage into action”, or the yieldingness aroused by
the permanent generational sensation of “being
born” too late.
TOO LATE!
(antigone)contest #2
devised and directed by Enrico Casagrande & Daniela
Nicolò
with: Silvia Calderoni and Vladimir Aleksic
dramaturgy: Daniela Nicolò
sound ambience: Enrico Casagrande
technical direction: Valeria Foti
thanks to:
Cecilia Ghidotti for assistance to the directors
Luca Scarlini for literary advice
and the people who took part in the workshop "Non siamo una
famiglia" for their unselfish collaboration
Production Motus
a project in collaboration with Fondazione del Teatro
Stabile di Torino and Festival delle Colline Torinesi
and the support of Magna Grecia Festival ’08,
L’Arboreto – Teatro Dimora di Mondaino, Regione
Emilia-Romagna and Ministero della Gioventù –
Progetto GECO
TOO LATE!
(antigone)contest #2
Debut: 20 - 21 October 2009, Festival Prospettiva 09/Teatro Stabile di Torino
Reruns
27-28 November 2009
Presented in the frame of Un Colpo.
Fanny & Alexander, Motus, Societas Raffaello Sanzio,Teatrino Clandestino
Four theater companies, one project for the youngs.
Organization: Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione
Progetto Geco - Ministero delta Gioventù e Regione Emilia Romagna
8 December 2009
Teatro degli Atti, Rimini
15-16 January 2010
Teatro Studio, Scandicci (FI)
10-11 March 2010
Artificierie Almagià,
Nobodaddy, Ravenna
01-02 April 2010
Festival Hybrides, Montpellier (Francia)
6 May 2010
Teatro Sanzio
TeatrOltre, Urbino
22-23 May 2010
Festival Théâtre en Mai, Dijon (Francia)
27 July 2010
Orestiadi 2010, Gibellina (TP)
3 September 2010
Short Theatre
Teatro India - Roma
2 October 2010
Festival Champs Libres
Espace Malraux - Scène Nationale de Chambéry Savoie (Francia)
27 October 2010
Doppia replica
Viva Festival
Teatro Lauro Rossi – Macerata
10 December 2010
Rassegna Innesti
Teatro della Regina – Cattolica (RN)
6-8-9-11-13-15 January 2011
Under the Radar
Public Theater - New York
1-2 January 2011
Teatro della Tosse – Genova
13 February 2011
CSS, Teatro Stabile di Innovazione – Udine
24 March 2011
Teatri di Vita – Bologna
1 April 2011
Doppia replica
Angelo Mai - Roma
28 July 2011
Drodesera, Centrale Fies – Dro (TN)
20 August 2011
Mladi Levi 2011- Ljubljana (SLO)
16-19 February 2012
World Theater Festival-Powerhouse, Brisbane (Aus)
23-25 March 2012
Marstrand volum IV
Blackbox Teater, Oslo (N)
30 May- 1 June 2012
FTA Festival TransAmériques, Montreal (CDN)
