Imagine a place suspended between reality and illusion, where the boundaries of the time dissolve and the words become bridge between eras and theatrical languages. This is the scenario imagined by Gianfranco Quero and Paola Lucchesi In the end of the year essay “As we like and like it”, the final show of the theater laboratory conducted by Quero which will be staged for free tomorrow and the day after tomorrow (17 and 18 June), starting at 9.00 pm, at the theater of sailors and Sunday 22 June, at 6.45 pm, at the Horcynus Orca.
A shared theatrical dream
Already the title contains and blends two pillars of dramaturgy: “So it is (if you like)” by Luigi Pirandello and “As you like it” by William Shakespeare. Pirandello and Shakespeare today could not meet except in a dream. And just like in a dream, in this theatrical work their characters, their words and their visions chase each other, intertwine, get confused. The result is a brilliant and surprising mosaic, made of fragments, quotes, dialogues and monologues taken from the works of the two masters of the world theater. Their voices, while coming from different times and cultures, find an unexpected harmony, giving life to a new, fluid, alive language. The “Villa degli Scalconati” as dreamlike space The setting chosen is not accidental: the Villa degli Scalconati by The Giants of the Mountain of Pirandello becomes the ideal stage to host this imaginary meeting. A place that in its very nature welcomes the border between art and life, between visible and invisible, between the saying and the unspoken. Here the ghosts of the Pirandellian and Shakespearean characters move, finally free to contaminate themselves, evoke, exchange masks and truths.
An unprecedented structure, a living experience
The show stands out for an original and largely unprecedented structure: not a simple representation, but a continuous flow of genres and registers, where the comedy mixes with poetry, and the tragedy is colored by burlesque. Light tones, even ironic, do not give up the depth: even rice is full of meaning, lightness also becomes a vehicle for reflection. The movements, the gestures, the expressions of the actors merge with the text, amplifying their emotional impact. It is a theater that you look at and listen to with all the senses.
The point of view: the real protagonist
In this rich and polyphonic composition, there is no clear border between comedian and tragic. Everything revolves around the point of view: that of Shakespeare, that of Pirandello, and that of the actors who give life to the words. The concepts overturn, the sentences chase each other, the sentences mix with the whispers. It is a serious game, a lucid dream in which the public is called to participate, reflecting, exciting, surprising himself. “As we like and like it” it represents more than one theatrical essay: it is a tribute to the power of the word, the strength of the interpretation, to the beauty of the theater that lives and renewed. It is the encounter between two genes, but also between two worlds, two visions, two sensitivity that, today more than ever, manage to talk to us in unison. And it is also the confirmation that the theater, when it is true, has no time or boundaries, but only voices that continue to resonate.