Enrico Bonavera and Francesco Origo will present the performance Arlecchin dell’ onda & BLU at the port of Ancient Epidaurus on Saturday July 13 at 22:30, as part of this year’s Epidaurus Lyceum.
A theatre company of sailing rhapsodists fare along ancient commercial routes, but have replaced the silk and spices of the old Mediterranean merchants with fantastic stories, myths and legends. The boat docks and offloads its goods, gathered together or dreamed of during its journeys: old tales which become contemporary and present-day stories with a quaint flavour. The boat itself becomes a mythical ‘place’, stage and ‘bartering counter’ at the same time: it sails wandering over the waves, sliding through the dense fibre of time. Here the audience becomes part of the show, which takes place on the boat and the quay, where an ancient sailor’s soup gets cooked and two servants of Dionysus give out inebriating goblets of wine.
Vakhtangov used to say “rid theatre of theatre”, urging us to go back to a narration which is both accessible and recognisable. Arlecchin dell’onda and BLU are made of those elements of traditional Italian and Mediterranean theatre that used to belong to the people, able as they were back then to turn an outright lie into magic.
