Luca Ronconi

PORNOGRAPHY

by Witold Gombrowicz

translation Vera Verdiani

set designer Marco Rossi

lighting designer Pamela Cantatore

directed by Luca Ronconi

with Riccardo Bini, Paolo Pierobon

and with Ivan Alovisio, Loris Fabiani, Davide Fumagalli, Lucia Marinsalta, Michele Nani, Franca Penone, Valentina Picello, Francesco Rossini

photo by Luigi Laselva

stage manager Angelo Ferro

first property man Mario Gaiaschi

property mistress Valentina Lepore

first stagehand Matteo Benini

stagehands Luigi Baggini, Marco Premoli, Alessio Rongione

electrician Matteo Testa

phonic Luca Mazzucco

seamstress Marisa Cosenza

make up Nicole Tomaini

production coordinators Claudia Di Giacomo, Maria Zinno

fot the Piccolo Teatro of Milan Production and Organization Office Eugenia Torresani

a project curated by Roberta Carlotto

a co-production Centro Teatrale Santacristina, Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d’Europa

in collaboration with Spoleto56 Festival of 2Worlds

a special thanks goes to Comune di Bevagna, Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria and Associazione Teatro Francesco Torti

Luca Ronconi is back in Spoleto for the fifth time. An intensive collaboration, strongly desired by the artistic director Giorgio Ferrara, who sees the constant presence at the Festival of the great director, with his extraordinary creative force, as an essential contribution in order to restore the highest value to this event.

At the beginning of the collaboration between the Santacristina Theater Center and the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, within the festival Ronconi presented, in 2008 a series of open lectures on Ibsen, in 2009 a study on the Seagull by Chekhov entitled Another seagull, in 2011 he staged The Modesty by Spregelburd and in 2012 In Search of an Author. Study on "Six Characters" by Luigi Pirandello, a show that was created from a three-year project with the National Academy of Dramatic Arts "Silvio d´Amico" and that, after the successful debut in Spoleto, arrived at the Piccolo Teatro Studio of Milan in October 2012.

In line with the bond between training and production of shows, that has always characterized the Santacristina Theater Center, this year Ronconi brings Pornography on stage, the text that was the study topic during the workshop in August-September 2012, which led to a theatrical abridgement of the novel divided into ten scenes. The show is produced by the Santacristina Theater Center in co-production with the Piccolo Teatro of Milan.

The two protagonists are brought on stage by Riccardo Bini and Paolo Pierobon, two well-known actors who have shared the success of many Ronconi shows, accompanied by a group of actors like Ivan Alovisio, Loris Fabiani, Lucia Marinsalta, Michele Nani, Franca Penone, Valentina Picello and Francesco Rossini, some already engaged in the Santacristina 2012 workshop.

With Pornography by Witold Gombrowicz, Luca Ronconi once again faces the scenic creation of a non-theatrical work. The Maestro is always true to the word, the author´s text: it is not, in fact, a script of the text, but a transposition, an analytical reading of the novel across the tools that are part of the theater, starting from the actors .

To the director’s mind the key theme of the novel is what Gombrowicz himself had explained: "two middle-aged gentlemen are fascinated by the encounter with a boy and a girl and are surprised by the relative indifference of the two, while they imagine the infinite erotic potential of this couple." At first glance you might only think about a relationship between young and old, but the relationship that develops between these people, on the one hand Witold and Federico and on the other, the young Carlo and Enrichetta, is much more subtle and deeper, and absolutely not generational. Actually, the two main characters enact a real assault on the others’ youth, which is entirely different. We witness the attempt to transform, or even destroy, the youth of others.

Pornography is a particular novel in which the author mentions himself various times "I", "Witold", "I the writer." In this way he is the protagonist and, at the same time, he hides within the other character, Federico, who accompanies him and drives him to continuous, perverse adventures. In fact, the word "pornography" is not referred to the actions, but to Witold’s thoughts that need to be represented by the character of Federico. For Ronconi "true pornographic Voyeurism is towards oneself, the look that each of us does not dare turn towards oneself, towards one’s own negative side and reflects it upon others."

WITOLD GOMBROWICZ

Witold Gombrowicz, who was born in Maloszyce in 1904 and died in Vence in 1969, is considered the greatest Polish writer of the twentieth century. He lived in Warsaw until the outbreak of war, then in Buenos Aires. Back in Europe, he was first in Berlin and then in France. In Italy, his works were published by Feltrinelli curated by Francesco Cataluccio along with novels such as Cosmo and Diary, Gombrowicz is known for his plays that had been staged in Italy in the sixties likeOperetta and Iwona, Princess of Burgundy.

LUCA RONCONI

Born on 8 March 1933 in Sousse (Tunisia), he graduates from the Accademia d’Arte Drammatica of Rome in 1953 and makes his début as an actor in Tre quarti di luna under the direction of Luigi Squarzina. Actor in Orazio Costa, Giorgio De Lullo and Michelangelo Antonioni’s performances, in 1963 he starts working as a director with the Corrado Pani and Gianmaria Volontè company.

It is the extraordinary and highly successful staging of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in 1969, with the reduction elaborated by Edoardo Sanguineti, to bring him to International success.

Over the years he has worked with several theater institutions: 1975 to 1977 he is director of the Theater Section at the Venice Biennale, and between 1977 and 1979 he founds and directs the Laboratorio di progettazione teatrale of Prato, where he stages Baccanti di Euripide and La torre di von Hofmannsthal.

In the eighties, the fundamental stages of Ronconi’s work, regarded as unquestionable leader in the history of postwar Italian theater, are Ignorabimus by Holz (1986), Dialoghi delle carmelitane by Bernanos (1988) and Tre sorelle by Chekhov (1989).

From 1989 to 1994 he is director of the Teatro Stabile of Turin for which, in 1992, he founds and directs the School for Actors and stages, among others, the play Gli ultimi giorni dell’umanità by Karl Kraus (1990), with the participation of over sixty actors in the engine room of the Lingotto in Turin, the absolute event of that theatrical season.

In 1994 he is appointed director of the Teatro di Roma, where he stages performances such as Re Lear by Shakespeare and Verse "Peer Gynt" by Ibsen (1995), Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana by Gadda (1996) and I fratelli Karamazov by Dostoevsky (1998).

From 1999 to 2010 he takes up the proxies for the artistic direction of the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, where he carries out many important works, such as, among others, La vita è sogno by Calderón de la Barca, Il sogno by Strindberg (2000), Lolita by Nabokov, I due gemelli veneziani by Goldoni, Candelaio by Bruno (2001), Quel che sapeva Maisie by James, and Infinities by the mathematician Barrow (2002), to the more recent Il sogno di una notte di mezza estate (2008) and Il mercante di Venezia (2009) by Shakespeare, Giusto la fine del mondo by Lagarce (2009), La compagnia degli uomini by Bond (2011) and Santa Giovanna dei Macelli by Brecht (2012) and Il panico (2013)by Spregelburd. Brecht (2012). He still runs the School for Actors of Milan.

In 2002 he founds, with Roberta Carlotto, the Centro Teatrale Santacristina, production and training unit which he directs in the countryside structure created between Gubbio and Perugia. With the Centro Teatrale Santacristina he produces shows such as Amore nello specchio (2002) with Mariangela Melato in Ferrara, Peccato che fosse puttana by Ford (2003), staged for the first time at the Teatro Farnese of Parma, the project Odissea doppio ritorno diptych which includes L’antro delle ninfe by Homer and Porfirio e Itaca by Botho Strauss (2007), which debuts in Ferrara, Nel bosco degli spiriti (2008), a fable by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutola translated into theatrical text by Cesare Mazzonis and live music by Ludovico Einaudi, commissioned by the Teatro Cuccinelli of Solomeo for its inauguration.

In 2006 he is invited to direct five performances in Turin, which constitute the "Progetto Domani", held on the occasion of the Winter Olympics: Troilo e Cressida by Shakespeare, Atti di guerra: una trilogia by Edward Bond, Biblioetica, Dizionario per l’uso by Corbellini, Donghi and Massarenti, (codirected with Claudio Longhi), Il silenzio dei comunisti by Foa, Mafai and Reichlin, Lo specchio del diavolo by Ruffolo.

With the beginning of the collaboration between the Centro Teatrale Santacristina and the Festival dei Due Mondi of Spoleto, Ronconi presents as part of the Festival, in 2008 a series of open lectures on Ibsen, in 2009 a study on Gabbiano by Chekhov with the title Un altro gabbiano, in 2011 he stages La modestia by Spregelburd and in 2012 In cerca d’autore, study on "Sei personaggi" by Luigi Pirandello, a show that was created from a three-year project with the National Academy of Dramatic Arts "Silvio d’Amico" and that after the successful début in Spoleto, arrived at the Piccolo Teatro Studio of Milan in October 2012.

As an opera director, besides the Italian opera "classics"(Verdi, Bellini, Puccini, and especially Rossini) and European (Bizet and Wagner), Ronconi adds an interesting study on the uncommon areas of musical theater, like the great age of Italian Baroque (Rossi and Monteverdi) or contemporary opera productions, including Il caso Makropulos by Janácek and Il giro di vite by Britten.

He also directs the television versions of some of his most important shows and he is exhibition curator, the last of which, among many others, La bella Italia. Arte e identità delle città capitali in the Juvarriane stable areas of the Venaria Reale in Turin for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy.

Many shows have won prestigious prizes and acknowledgements, such as the VI Premio Europa per il Teatro di Taormina Arte (April 1998); the UBU Prize as the best show of their theatrical season for "Progetto sogno" in 2000, Lolita in 2001, Infinities in 2002, Professor Bernhardi in 2005, "Progetto Domani" in 2006 and, more recently, the National Critics Prize for "Progetto Lagarce" and the ETI Prize as best show for Sogno di una notte di mezza estate.

In 2008. he was awarded by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei with the Prize "Antonio Feltrinelli" for Theater Direction and has received honorary degrees from the Universities of Bologna (1999), Perugia (2003), Urbino (2006) and Venice (2012). At the Venice Biennale Teatro, in August 2012 he withdrew the Leone d’Oro alla Carriera, and in March 2013, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, he was conferred with the Sigillo della Città by the Mayor of Milan.

RICCARDO BINI

Born in Florence, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1978 he participates in the Laboratory of Theatre Design in Prato and in the show La Torre di Hofmannsthal, directed by Ronconi. Between 1978 and 1984 he attends the first year of the Academy of Dramatic Arts "Silvio d’Amico" in Rome and the Actor’s Workshop directed by Vittorio Gassman, works with Ugo Chiti, Elio De Capitani, Giancarlo Cobelli, Mario Martone and Piero Maccarinelli. Since 1985 he has collaborated with Ronconi participating in many of his shows, including La Serva Amorosa by Goldoni, Ignorabimus by Arno Holz (1986), Strange Interlude by O’Neill, The Hard Man by Hofmannsthal (1990), The Last Days of Humanity by Kraus (1991), Measure for Measure by Shakespeare (1992), The Makropulos Deal by Capek (1993), verse "Peer Gynt" by Ibsen (1995), Ruy Blas by Hugo (1996), The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (1998), Alcesti by Samuele di Savinio (1999), then, at the Piccolo La vita è sogno by Calderón de la Barca (2000), for which he won the Ubu Prize as best supporting actor in the role of Clarino, I due Gemelli Veneziani by Goldoni, Candelaio by Bruno (2001), Frogs by Aristofane (2002), Pity she was a Whore by Ford (2003), La Centaura by Andreini (2004), Professor Bernhardi by Schnitzler (2005), Troilus and Cressida by Shakespeare (at the Stabile of Turin 2006), Il ventaglio by Goldoni, Ithaca by Botho Strauss (2007), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2008), Just the End of the World by Jean-Luc Lagarce and The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare, both in 2009, The Company of Men by Edward Bond (2011), The Panic by Rafael Spregelburd (2013).

PAOLO PIEROBON

Actor of theater, cinema and television. A graduate of the Municipal School of Dramatic Art "Paolo Grassi" in Milan, in 2004 he receives the award of the National Association Italian Critics as Best Newcomer for the shows Endgame by Samuel Beckett (directed by Lorenzo Loris) and Morte accidentale di un Anarchico by Dario Fo (directed by Ferdinando Bruni and Elio De Capitani).

In 2008,he plays the role of Levin in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, in the staging of Eimuntas Nekrosius, and wins the Ubu Prize for Best Supporting Actor. In 2009, again with Elio De Capitani,he is Ian in Blasted by Sarah Kane, Luca Ronconi directs him at the Festival of Spoleto in a brand new version of The Seagull by Chekhov (Another Seagull) where he plays the writer Trigorin, then, in the season 2010/2011, in The company of Men by Edward Bond, at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, in Nora at the test from "A Doll’s House" by Ibsen at the Teatro della Corte of Genoa, in The Modesty by Rafael Spregelburd presented at the Festival of Two Worlds of Spoleto, at the Mittelfest of Cividale del Friuli and at the Piccolo; in the season 2011/12 he is entrusted with the role of Mauler in Saint Joan of the Stockyards by Brecht, in 2013 he is Emilio in The Panic again by Spregelburd, always at the Piccolo Teatro.

Among the latest interpretations, also La malattia della famiglia M., written and directed by Fausto Paravidino. His cinema debut in 1998 is in Pompeo, medium-length film by Paolo Vari and Antonio Bocola. The following year he is the protagonist, with Sandra Ceccarelli, from Guarda il cielo (Stella, Sonia, Silvia) by Piergiorgio Gay. In 2005,in Come l’ombra by Marina Spada, he is a Russian professor. He participates in several films directed by Federico Rizzo, including Lievi crepe sul muro di cinta in 2003, where he plays (as main actor) a marginalized poet, and Fuga dal call center in 2008 in a cameo.

In the same year he is directed by Marco Bellocchio in Vincere where he is the fascist Bernardi. Marina Spada has also directed him in Il mio domani. On television, he has recently been directed by Maurizio Zaccaro in Lo smemorato di Collegno (Lawyer Farinacci) and he is among the main actors of Squadra antimafia - Palermo oggi. He has a new movie coming out: La prima neve by Andrea Segre.

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