Calendar

A poem, a cry from the heart and mind, opens the performance: Flowers for my land (from A Shuttle in the Cript). It will be as if  Wole Soyinka invited us to come into “his” Africa: a world populated by mythological and fantastic creatures, still alive in his childhood memories, and by tragedies born of Nigerian post-colonialism. The forest and the oil, dreams and genocides, the poverty of a continent that is exploited, shattered, deprived of its own traditions and its own identity, and yet rich in energy and strength and capabilities, in people committed to the effort of developing a new culture. But little Wole, whom we meet as a child in Akè village, doesn’t know yet that he will be one of the main protagonists of this creative effort. Music and images will lead to the discovery of this far reality, until the civil war tragedy, in a whirl of destruction and death that will directly involve Wole himself. He will be imprisoned and feel compelled to desperately seek a new chance for “man” to set free of horror, facing the worst, as well as the best features that the powerful western world’s culture has been able to create. But man is alive will go through the pages of his books to explain, in his continuous “evasion” and return journeys, the search for an ideal bridge between Nigeria and England, Nigeria and the whole world. So, thanks to the actors, music and images, we will try to lead the audience on a short journey in Wole Soyinka’s great and many-sided creative universe. A poet in search for a new Africa, like Ulysses in A Shuttle in the Cript, who is dreaming of a place, in which

“Our questions, here, turn from bridging
Passes of eroded runs, from scratching
Upon the calloused skin of blind, redemptive Doors”

Silvano Piccardi

Silvano Piccardi
He made his debut in television in 1955. Then, until 1969, he worked with the most important Italian theatre companies, and also in television, cinema, radio, advertising and dubbing. As an author, his first show was Pace 66 (Peace 66), against violence and war. After dedicating some time to journalism, he started working for the theatre again, but outside the traditional circuit (La Comune, Nuovo canzoniere italiano, Gruppo della Rocca…). He went back to Rai (and later Mediaset) in 1979, acting in several television serials. For thirty years he has been more and more committed to direction. Some theatre works he directed in the new millennium are: Buenos Aires non finisce mai (Buenos Aires never ends) by Biolchini and Arthemalle, starring Ottavia Piccolo; L’histoire du soldat by Stravinskij, starring Lella Costa; L’Arlésienne by Bizet, starring Ivana Monti; Terra di latte e miele (The land of milk and honey) by Manuela Dviri and Silvano Piccardi, starring Ottavia Piccolo; Donna non rieducabile – memorandum per Anna Politkoskajia (Un-re-educable woman – a memorandum for Anna Politkoskajia) by Stefano Massini, starring Ottavia Piccolo; Penelope è partita (Penelope has left) by Silvano Piccardi, starring Elisabetta Vergani; Niente più niente al mondo, (Nothing on earth anymore) by Massimo Carlotto, starring Silvia Soncini. Among his most recent appearances on stage as an actor: 2007/9, Processo a Dio (God on Trial) by Stefano Massini, starring Ottavia Piccolo, directed by Sergio Fantoni; Enigma, by Stefano Massini, starring Ottavia Piccolo; 2012, Romeo e Giulietta – nati sotto cattiva stella (Romeo and Juliet – born under a bad star) by Leo Muscato. He also frequently works as radio-phonic director and as dubbing director in art films.