In fondo agli occhi
Compagnia Berardi-Casolari / César Brie
24/05/2013
, 
19:00
25/05/2013
, 19:00
26/05/2013
, 22:30
by and with Gianfranco Berardi and Gabriella Casolari
direction César Brie
lights and sound Andrea Bracconi
set elements Franco Casini Roberto Spinaci
musical collaboration Giancarlo Pagliara
organization Carlotta Ghizzoni
Compagnia Berardi-Casolari
with the support of Teatro Stabile di Calabria
Running time 1h 15'
World première
In fondo agli occhi (In the Depths of His Eyes) is a new dramatic performance which has its roots in a collection of stories told by patrons in various provincial coffee bars along the Italian peninsula in 2011.
During the year of celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, in the middle of a dramatic economic-financial crisis, we had fun travelling through small towns and cities from San Remo to Reggio Calabria, collecting opinions, stories and experiences that tell the tale of the condition our country finds itself in. We found ourselves in various 'Italian bars' listening, with particular attention to these stories in which reality far exceed imagination and in which tragedy and comedy are mixed together in an extraordinary interweaving.
We often came across exuberant people who, at the bar, invented a life that was completely different from their own; and many other times we found people who spent hours sitting at a bar table staring at nothing, glass in hand.
The question arose spontaneously: what lies in the depths of the eyes of these people?
How do we pass our time in our country? Where are we in this mess that surrounds us and prevents us from moving forward? What part of these stories represents us and what part of us belongs to these stories?
How can we as actors recount something that we see every day as spectators? This question kindled the desire to create, starting from our personal experiences, on the basis of what is in the depths of our eyes, a fresco of contemporary art in what, for us, is one of the last meeting places, the bar, a place where a great actor may not be recognized and where the village idiot is the most eagerly awaited character. The bar, the provincial bar, moreover, is an ideal setting in which to talk about one’s generation, one’s dreams and one’s illnesses.
So began a journey that mixes fantasy, autobiographical fragments, poetry and comedy, but which basically talks about a disease: blindness. The blindness which tangibly influences us daily, the blindness of the times in which we live, a metaphor for the 'condition' we are in.
Onstage a bartender, Italia, a woman disappointed and abandoned by her man, and Tiresia, her partner and lover, who is blind, tell their stories, their lost dreams, their weaknesses and their hopes in a bar in a town where, "... no one is left ...," because "... it takes talent to be even mediocre ...".
Their relationship is an unhealthy love, in which she relives for the umpteenth time her sacrifice of being a woman, of having to take care of a man, in particular because he is blind and so she needs “... to care for him like a child” and in which he shows all of his fear of having to deal with the world, and the need to “... feel all the more powerful the sicker you are."
They have been, are and will always be in 'crisis', like the town in which they live, worn out by their existence as well as by their relationship.
Everything seems to proceed in the eternal balance of conflict until Italia decides to interrupt the perverse mechanism, forcing Tiresia into an awareness that has become necessary:
“... I want to get rid of these blinding lights, like fireworks, that hurt my eyes,
rebel against the thousand voices that confuse my feelings, break free from the instinct of possession which leads me to conquer that which is not needed,
refuse every vile compromise for fear of remaining empty-handed, and I give up the laziness, complaints, self-pity, and vanity that lead me to seek out some external pretext to heal.
I reject this cunning disease that wants me prisoner, the consoling whiteness of my eyes that stops me and justifies every mistake.
I am waiting for a different light to illuminate my path, to dispel the mists and lead me to recognize this absurd and controversial human being that I am, and by whom I am often ashamed and delighted.
I want to rebel and I will start here, now, with me.”
Compagnia Berardi - Casolari
www.berardicasolari.it
Compagnia Berardi-Casolari / César Brie
Compagnia Berardi - casolari
In 2001, while Gianfranco Berardi was working as an actor in the production Viaggio di Pulcinella alla ricerca di Giuseppe Verdi (The Journey of Pulcinella in Search of Giuseppe Verdi) with the playwright and actor Marco Manchisi, he met the actress Gabriella Casolari, with whom he began a collaboration that, after several experiences with different theater companies, led to the creation of the Compagnia Berardi-Casolari in May 2008. The poetics expressed by the group have their roots in the movement that is generally categorized as "new drama," but also take into consideration the folk or traditional cultural aspects of each performance.
Productions include:
Briganti (Brigands) Winner of the " Festival Internazionale di Lugano," for new drama in October 2005, the production describes the unification of Italy as a civil war.
Land Lover Winner of the Premio ETI - Nuove Creatività (ETI - New Creativity Award) and the "Principi Attivi" ("Active Principles") competition of the Puglia Region’s Department of Transparency and Active Citizenship, the production explores religious and sexual tourism in paradises for the deluded.
Io provo a volare. Omaggio a Domenico Modugno (I try to fly. A tribute to Domenico Modugno) A theatrical-musical production, supported by the Castel dei Mondi International Festival (Andria BAT), and winner of multiple awards at the "JoakimInterFest" in Kragujevac (Belgrade, Serbia). Winner of the Special Jury Prize and the Prize for Best Performance, selected by the public, it tells of the ambitions, dreams and disappointments of a boy who wants to be an actor.
In 2012 the company won the Puglia Sounds competition, thanks to which it was invited to the Cooper-Slovenia Festival and the Italian Institute of Culture in Paris.
Gianfranco Berardi
Winner of the Premio Scenario (Scenario Award) in 2005 with the show Il Deficiente (The Idiot), in 2007 he worked as a writer for the RadioDue drama Il consiglio di Cagnara (The Board of Cagnara) directed by Gabriele Vacis.
He is currently working on the Rai 2 program Quelli che… (Those who ...). In 2010, UBU LIBRI Milan published a collection of his texts in Viaggio per amore- dal Deficiente a Land Lover (A Journey of Love – From The Idiot to Land Lover), edited by Franco Quadri.
He is the leading actor in the film babis-figli dei rospi- (babis, sons of toads) by Niccolo Manzolini.
Gabriella Casolari
Actress, director and theater technician. She graduated from the A. Fava International School of Commedia dell'Arte in 1990 and attended the Voix Acteur Laboratory at the Roy Hart Theater in Anduze, France.
She has carried out various educational activities, such as the Teatro Femminile (Female Theater) project with the female inmates of the St. Anne Prison in Modena, the Progetto Pluriennale di Studio teorico /pratico sulla Commedia dell’Arte (Multi-year Theoretical/Practical Study Project on Commedia dell'Arte) at the Department of Italian Studies, University of Augsburg, Germany in 1995/96.
She has worked as an actress and lighting technician in several performances at La Dama Bianca Theatre, the Sassuolo Teatro del vicolo (Alley Theatre) in Reggio Emilia, and the Baracca of Bologna.
In 2010, Berardi and Casolari met Cèsar Brie while working as assistant directors of the show Albero senza ombra (Tree Without a Shadow), and with him they created their new production In fondo agli occhi (In the Depths of his Eyes), written by Berardi and Casolari, and directed by Brie.
Their second publication, which is a collection of the latest work of the Compagnia, will soon be released under the name In fondo agli occhi (In the Depths of his Eyes), by the Editoria & Spettacolo - Roma publishing house.
César Brie was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He arrived in Italy when he was 18 years old with the Comuna Baires, a theatre group of which he’s the cofounder, playing in several production directed by Renzo Casali and Liliana Duca.
With this group he started to develop a stateless art, in harness with many realities he had encountered in his life spent, by choice, in exile. After 1975 he founded in Milan the theatre company Tupac Amaru; we mention, among the plays he has produced, Ehi, in collaboration with Danio Manfredini. From 1981 to 1990 he worked with Iben Nagel Rasmussen in the group Farfa and then in the Odin Teatret as author, director and actor.
Among others play we mention Matrimonio con Dio and Talabot directed by Eugenio Barba. After these experiences he founded in 1991 in Bolivia the theatre Il Teatro de los Andes. With this group he created plays inspired by historical events or by literature classics, even if deeply involved in the actuality. It grows out a series of marvellous plays destined to a world tour (Romeo e Giulietta, Ubu in Bolivia, Solo gli ingenui muoiono d’amore, Dentro un sole giallo, Fragile, Otra vez Marcelo… l’Iliade, Odissea).
César Brie took part also in other productions, as author or director: Il cielo degli altri, produced in Italy in collaboration with the actors of the Teatro Setaccio; Zio Vanja by Anton Cechov, directed together with Isadora Angelini; Todos los ausentes realized in Santiago del Cile with the actor Hector Noguera from Teatro Camino; he wrote I Clienti directed by Giancarlo Gentilucci for Arti e Spettacolo
