Lear

Biography

Teatro della Toscana

Company

Description

Each man is a small soul that carries a dead body.
Epictetus

What happens to the kingdom of our everyday life when we, the king, abandon it? What becomes of the kingdom of our certainties when the castle we have been building and defending for many years crumbles at our feet?

King Lear is a complex play that is difficult to bring to the stage, and yet, just like Hamlet, it is one of the great plays that have become synonymous with theatre. Lear illuminates the part of human nature (individual and collective alike) that awakens us and confronts us with what we really are: beings who are fragile and dangerous, but still able to recognise our own condition.

Lear, who abdicates in favour of his daughters, suffers a downfall that first plunges the old man into a mental breakdown and then enables him to rise, with the fragility of a child, to a new beginning that at the same time marks the end of his life. Lear is the story of the king’s sick soul that becomes lost in the history of the world it created, a world of injustices, wars and betrayals.

Lear is the story of the king’s sick soul that becomes lost in the world of injustices, wars, betrayals. Lear is a character that we embody whenever we entrust our lives to the fragile, ambitious and dangerous lives of others whilst lacking a real awareness of ourselves… And so, naked and helpless, we face the storm of our history and that of others.
Roberto Bacci

Teatro della Toscana
Director ― Roberto Bacci
Text ― Roberto Bacci, Stefano Geraci inspired by William Shakespeare’s King Lear
Performers ― Maria Bacci Pasello, Michele Cipriani, Savino Paparella, Silvia Pasello, Francesco Puleo, Caterina Simonelli, Tazio Torrini, Silvia Tufano
Assistant director ― Francesco Puleo
Set and costume designer ― Márcio Medina
Costumes ― Fondazione Cerratelli in collaboration with Il Laboratorio di Costumi and Scene del Teatro della Pergola
Set design ― Scenartek in collaboration with Chiara Occhini
Original music ― Ares Tavolazzi
Music consultant ― Emanuele Le Pera, Elias Nardi
Historical music consultant ― Stefano Pogelli
Recording studio ― S.A.M. di Mirco Mencacci
Lighting ― Valeria Foti, Stefano Franzoni
Staging ― Leonardo Bonechi
Dresser ― Benedetta Orsoli
Dresser assistant ― Cinzia Sodi
Production curators ― Angela Colucci, Eleonora Fiori
Partner ― Italian Ministry of Culture
Premiere ― 1 April 2016

Bacci [...] has Lear played by an actress to strip away the character’s gender connotations and show Lear as just human; and Silvia Pasello is excellent at bringing out Lear’s vulnerability and visionary imagination hidden behind a mask of extreme toughness.

Anna Bandettini | La Repubblica
The stark, pithy and lucid message of the mise-en-scène enriches the complex context of unhealthy family emotions which can have ruthless consequences. [...] All this plays out against a bare-bones set consisting of seven darkly coloured papier-mâché-like curtains which are moved around the stage, defining the different perspectives for particular settings: the creative transformations that open and close scenes of intimate conversations and duels, sudden intrusions and contemplative monologues.

Giuseppe Distefano | ilsole24ore.com
This wasn’t King Lear of Shakespeare proportions. Far from it. Perhaps we could call it a poetic allusion. Maybe a haiku, because of its essentiality. [...] A simple and peaceful ritual, secular no doubt – a theatrical celebration.

Andrea Porcheddu | glistatigenerali.com
Bacci’s Lear is ritualistic: there are neutral masks, the actors that put in motion the stage machinery, sing and verbally duel with one another. [...] His direction gives rise to questions that involve actors and spectators alike. What happens when we take off our masks and abandon our social roles? The final scene is very powerful – the sound of singing is heard from the distance: it may be coming from the afterworld, or perhaps it is an echo of Grotowski’s lessons.

Roberto Incerti | firenze.repubblica.it