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Premio Europa per il Teatro a Lev Dodin |
| VI Premio Europa
Nuove Realtà Teatrali |
| Theatergroep
Hollandia |
Thomas
Ostermeier |
Socíetas
Raffaello Sanzio |
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LEV
DODIN
A student of one of Stanislavsky's most faithful followers,
Lev Dodin left his native Siberia for the old cities
of former Russia when he was very young. He has devoted
his life to a teaching method that is never separated
from practice, and this was his starting point for founding
a company that was seen as an extended family, with
a belief in ensemble performances and workshops, even
before he was called upon to direct the Maly in 1983
and make it a leading theatre in the last decades of
the twentieth century. The House was born as a play
for his group, who graduated from the Drama School in
St. Petersburg, after months spent in the northern village
where Feodor Abramov wrote his novel on the trials and
tribulations of peasant life. It was adapted for the
stage by using improvisation to render the actual true-to-life
atmosphere to be found in Brothers and Sisters. This
tragic epic of the kolkhoz, inspired by the author himself
in the mid-eighties, takes place in the space of eight
emotional hours of tears and laughter and plumbs the
depths of the "great Russian soul", which
is one of the director's favourite subjects, together
with the controversial analysis of the history of his
country, especially through the adaptation of novels
for the theatre. The culmination of this was the staging
of a Dostoyevsky classic that had long been banned,
The Demons, which he rehearsed for three years and was
staged regularly by the Maly company for nine years
in ten-hour performances of thrilling words and actions.
These already imply a discourse on the revolutionary
spirit of a people that serves as an introduction to
the metaphor of the suicidal utopia expressed in Andrei
Platonov's Cevengur, the recent stage masterpiece floating
on water, and the Untitled Play by Chekhov, translated
by Dodin into a dance through the twentieth century.
Gaudeamus, on the contrary, is set on a snowy stage
and is the first of the plays produced with the Drama
School students. It is a satire on Russian training
for military service that unfortunately remains very
topical today, and is part of the repertoire that focuses
on contemporary man, which the company offers to its
public worldwide, thus restoring to us a sense of the
necessity for the theatre.
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The Hollandia Theatergroep, founded
in 1985 by choreographer/director Johan Simons and
composer/director Poul Koek, holds an important position
in the Dutch theatre world. From the outset the group's
plays have been distinguished by their ensemble dimension
and by their capacity to become integrated with places
outside the usual theatre circuits. The Hollandia
Theatergroep has devoted itself to theatrical research
without ever disassociating itself from a strong participation
in current social and political debates. The Hollandia
Theatergroep has based its exploration of language
on famous texts, especially ancient and modern tragedies,
but also on non-theatrical literary motifs. In addition,
the group has developed a mix of languages that permits
it to perform within the sphere of the theatre, dance
and the most sophisticated musical expressions. The
Hollandia Theatergroep's appeal lies in the variety
of fields it explores and in the poetical power of
its performances that are charged with unusual polemical
force. The group deserves European and international
acclaim. It is exceptional.
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Whilst working at the "Baracke"
in Berlin, Thomas Ostermeier has succeeded in leading
contemporary theatre in a precise, independent direction
by exploiting the discovery of new dramatists and
combining this with a suitable style of direction,
based - in addition to his exceptional ability to
choose and direct the actors - on a timing and vision
that can be compared with the cinema, life and urban
imagery. Thus Ostermeier has contributed towards expressing
the anxieties of the younger generations by giving
a faithful, moving picture of them on stage, which
is far from being "academic" and recreates
a direct link with what happens in society and what
is staged in the theatre. Ostermeier's theatre thus
generates new energies and interests a new German
and European audience.
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SOCÍ
ETAS RAFFAELLO SANZIO
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Having come to the theatre from the visual arts, the
Societas Raffaello Sanzio, which in twenty years' work
has moved from a provocative ludic approach to the invention
of a language, from iconoclastic theatre to a return
to an imaginary Sumerian tradition, has now reached
full maturity and taking the lead in new young drama
by staging the great classics. Founded by two Castellacci
and two Guidi brothers from Cesena, the Societas has
remained an extended family group in which mothers,
aunts, sons, daughters and animals all play a part,
and has now taken on the new role of teaching new actors
and children. It has also adapted a series of non-mystifying
fairy-tales for the stage for children. But it has been
the process of re-inventing the classics by personally
re-experiencing them and focusing on the communication
of energy, that led this company to tour the world and
become the main attraction at major festivals. And now
we have Romeo Castellucci's group moving from an autistic
Hamlet prey to his animalistic physicality, in a mechanized
context, to a radical reading of a different Shakespeare,
based on a corporality that does not exclude disease;
and hence to a cosmic vision in two weighty triptychs:
the imaginary and creative Orestea and the memorable
recreation of Genesis. This is a self-analysis of the
superhuman work of the artist and a reflection on the
history of man and the progress of science through the
mystery of the relationship between good and evil, in
an increasingly less verbal and more visual conception
of the theatre, where the rapid sequence of the electric
sparks of sound is an increasingly decisive factor in
the emotional attack on the audience.
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