POENULUS (Carthaginian) by Plautus in Volterra for the premiere: the Roman Theater in the Roman Theatre

17/07/201509/6/2015Natalia Dantas

By © Natalia Dantas-

Titus maccius Plautus with "Poenulus (Carthaginian)" at the Roman Theatre of Volterra, the XIII International Festival of theatre. An event, first national, under the skillful direction of Giancarlo Sammartano.

11699057_558281990977728_5405606002159145063_o At a time when the playwrights proliferate, finally a moment of philological correctness of much school, staged in an authentic setting of stone theater and fascination, underlined by music by another veteran of classical theatre stagings, Brendan Macmillan. A unique and unrepeatable moment, where millennia have canceled in the magic of the Roman Theatre of Volterra.

A mild comedy, unusual in the plot for our taste today, belonging to the great innamorate type palliata with anagnorisis, i.e. Greek setting with final recognition weave; so elegant in translation and to avoid a repetition of the name of heaviness in Plautus and vulgarities that usually accompanies it.

A version of great taste, in a staging with the canons of true comedy classic: four actors, thirteen masks, thirteen characters to be interpreted, by exchanging the performers, from time to time, roles in a clever interplay of entrances and exits and turns, exchanges of identity and customs, conceived the latter as scenes, by Daniela Cato.

An unusual society nowadays comes from the big Plautus, a social condition in which slaves are treated as slaves (albeit "callidi", in this case, as Milfione and Sincerasto, that is clever and warping machines main story intrigues) and yearn to become Freedmen, finding it normal to be mistreated…as well as their masters are normal to buy them and sell them and be in their turn, by mistake, bought and sold…To the Viewer, an impact with a world that no longer exists, but in the sense of weaves, cheating, people and characters is not changed that much since then…there where also the buying public gets involved with modern in action and in the theatre play and called to order and to the deserved, dutiful applause.

But are the masks, with their ancient charm to Lord it. Work hard for the four young actors, which, thanks to the masks, they also held three female roles, as used even then, when women do not wield his on stage.

Emerging from millennia, the characters of Plautus, with their polychrome masks crafted by Giancarlo Santelli with noble materials and strictly reproduced from models of masks of Lipari, the theater to its original nature of the place of fantasy and imagination, inventiveness and dream.

The masks have a life of their own, are not ordinary objects, but "magic" objects, connected with the cult of the God Dionysus, God of wine and pleasure not only, but also of the theatre and the enjoyment of property to the underworld. The masks are an intermediary between the divine and the human, between the transcendent and the immanent. The “symbiosis”then created between mask and actor observes the spectator to theater, used generally to mean the form as a disguise or a “coverage” of the face, albeit in artistic purposes, that it really is something alive and that only after it has been studied thoroughly and understand the expressive value, is able to use it properly and human drama at the moment of acting. Looking, then, the question from the point of view is no longer the applicant, but to the public, do not ever underestimate the presence of a mask on stage: it is the soul of the actor who wears it and that, therefore, becomes one with him and, in a sense, even supernatural.

11027485_10205359264238574_1159121335965547658_n — The Agoràstocle masks, the Carthaginian, artwork of Giancarlo Santelli

A full immersion in the unusual, but supported by that penalty that still face great theatre of a great as Plautus, riconoscendogliene the correct value in every respect, including that of Latin father of comedy.

© Natalia Dantas

“The Theatrical Art House Foundation offers summer 2015 a repertoire of two shows from different plautini lyrics but of equal significance and value: The Persian (lost), and the Carthaginian (Phoenulus). The shows that can be represented individually or sequentially to evenings alternate, represent the historic and charming scenic mode of that drama: only four actors in fact, through the use of masks interpret – in a dizzying and exhilarating in itself theatrical play – the fifteen roles of the two texts.
The Persian, in its perfect blend of truth and appearances, makes a model inimitable comedy machine, where the hosts ' power is mercilessly to boria sedan with a wicked spirit that refers to the poetry of Aristophanes, the utopia of a society of righteous in harmony with the natural life of the world.
The Carthaginian, composed in memory of the Punic Wars, that both had shaken the Roman political and military power, is an exhilarating blend of lovers, free girls sold as slaves, servants, soldiers and enterprising fools bullies. Disguise, deception, traps constructed for dismissal final where elementary common sense justice triumphs in dream of collective freedom.
The shows, (directed by Giancarlo Sammartano, stage and costumes by Daniela Cato, music by Brendan Macmillan, Giancarlo Santelli masks) represented individually or sequentially to evenings alternate, represent the historic and charming scenic mode of that drama: only four actors in fact, through the use of masks interpret – in a dizzying and exhilarating in itself theatrical play – the fifteen roles of the two texts. The formula resumes consistently and rigorously, the experience of the first years ' 90 with the National Institute of ancient drama of Syracuse around Curculio and Truculent than Plautus, directed by Giancarlo Sammartano. The masks created by Giancarlo Santelli, are recreated on the model of the votive terracottas to Dionysus, discovered in the ' 60 and ' 70 in the excavations of the necropolis of Lipari, which faithfully reproduce the types of Greek new comedy of Menander and affinity those of Latin palliata.
A small company can be literally in four wants to bring today – with philological and freedom of thought – original size: restoring the great innamorate theatre entertainment of plots, characters, situations, verbal clashes; but also looking at the great lesson of classical theatre in his relationship with the public – both the tragic that in the comic – the value of learning experience about the nature of the social world. A secret memory on the meaning and value of theater, in which the word acrobatic dance in a vital body, where besides the malice to capture your audience – of pleasure – transmitting tension or mirth, a pungent humor and addictive.
The great innamorate world not only describes a gallery of types and paradoxical, but comic situations reflects, in the deformation of the theatre, an entire social world. The Roman Republic and the Roman world are described and interpreted as a parallel universe where the rules are subverted and rewritten for the benefit of young lovers and servants enterprising. An area of freedom that only the theatre, in its lightness and apparent innocuousness can afford to practice.
…. A theater then, that under the guise of pure fun, puts into motion the spirit of observation, understanding and criticism. With the futile pretence of slender stories of unlikely twists, ridiculous character, this theater speaks of nothing looming over the life, creates many lights to allude to as many shadows. To suggest to the audience that if the theater does not always reflect accurately the life certainly explains with skill the pains and joys.
Persian and Carthaginian, as two chapters of a great novel, born today in balance between the memory of a lively past and the legitimate desire to invent yet, telling the new audience – so different but not dissimilar from the antique one – the sense of fun that is also curiosity of learning and joy of learning. " (Source "Foundations")