«Schiaffetu», «A sdirruba muntagni», «roba bannera», «a li cursi»: they were all written there, on the notes scattered on the ground by the storyteller who on Monday opened, with his powerful voice, the thirteenth Cortile Teatro Festival of Messina, perhaps the most troubled but certainly the most creative and enthusiastic: after the change of the historic “stage” (the Calapaj-D’Alcontres courtyard) with new spaces (such as the courtyard of the Palace of the Lions)and the important support of the Municipality of Messina for the worthy initiative of the association Il Castello di Sancio Panza, the unexpected evening rain forced the actors – the Palermo company Babel – to reformulate the scene and the gestures, demonstrating once again to the devoted public the infinite creativity of the theatre, its ability to play at shaping spaces, even interior ones, and to take every scene.
In “Mutu cu sapi u jocu”, created and directed by Joseph Provinzano it is him, the game, the protagonist: the most human thing, together with the story. And this the storyteller-narrator (Provinzano himself), on stage with a perfect puppet that duplicates him in the details, says it right away: «Iucari e cuntari», that’s what counts. Because if «the cuntu in itself doesn’t count anything», the cuntu allows you to tell others (who are all the same, the show seems to tell us, all made of the same substance: cuntu and iocu) what goes on inside us, «the universal vices and affectations». Thus, starting from the frenetic and alliterative fable of «Re bafè biscott’e minè» – at the center of the inspiration of the trilogy «P3-coordinate popolari», of which the show is the third part, there is the immense Sicilian ethnologist Giuseppe Pitre – we are all caught up and involved in the collective game, which at a certain point explodes in the thousand “pizzini” that fly, each one with the name of an ancient game written on it, almost always forgotten, among which the dance-cuntu of the very talented ones takes place Federica Aloisio and Roberto Galbo (choreography by Simona Silversmithsscenic environment of Trombini Stone), who, tirelessly and plastically, stage infinite fragments of games that we know anyway – be they morra or cavallina, tag or capture the flag – that are in our collective memory, even today when we play with clicks in front of a video.
Dance-cuntu and dialogue with the audience, a wonderfully physical dialogue: hands that stretch out, glances that exchange, “pizzini” that are handed over as what they are, precious gifts of the collective game that we play together, in an imaginary square, actors and audience, dancers and spectators, humans and humans. While it rains outside (what a joke, the rain so long awaited by thirsty Sicily), and the game becomes putting on a show in a tighter circle, without giving up its energy, its way of “cuntare” with the whole body (which, as you know, begins with words).
The beautiful review, from an idea of the artistic director Roberto Zorn Bonaventura, Giuseppe Giamboi and Stefano Barbagallo with the support of Latitudini, a Sicilian drama network, and well-deserving sponsors, it is an important thing for the city and beyond. It continues on Monday in Courtyard of the Spanish Fort, Horcynus Orca Park of Torre Farowith «The sympathy of all things», by and with Michael Sinisi.
