It’s not a comfortable sight: it’s a open wound which asks the public to stay there, without shortcuts, while words become political matter, memory and conscience.
Al Eleonora Duse Theatre goes in first national Seven Jewish girls. Play for Gaza by Caryl Churchill, translated by Masolino d’Amico, directed by Carlo Orlando, on stage from Tuesday 27 January to Sunday 1 February.
Short writing, long impact
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Churchill signs a text of icastic brevity that is striking. It is an essential and symbolic dramaturgy which, precisely because it is dry, amplifies the impact. Born in 2009, in the aftermath of the military operation Cast lead in Gaza (cause of over 1400 deaths), today returns as a device that resembles a electrocution: more than telling, it forces you to look.
Seven paintings, a choir, a little girl who isn’t there
The structure proceeds by seven paintingsseven speeches spanning almost a century: from the memory of Shoah to the birth of the State of Israel, from the Six Day War to the present. Painting after painting, the work puts desperation and pity, dream and reality, violence and tenderness in tension, until contradictions are discovered that remain painful, unresolved, without consolatory points. It’s a choir that speaks to a little girl who it never appears: this very absence becomes its most insistent presence.
Directed by Carlo Orlando: no “characters”, only conscience
Carlo Orlando directs and is also on stage, sharing the work with Eva Cambiale, Paolo Li Volsi, Caterina Tieghi, Elisa Carucci e Pietro Dessimio. The declared choice is clear: not to build “characters”, but to bring to life “the singing of a choir”, a mirror of a torn conscience, where violence alternates with caress and the request for help ends in ruthlessness. Orlando talks about a choir that becomes a mirror of our conscience, witness to a horror that it cannot stop.
Live music and body score: a breathing scene
The scene moves on one choreographic score designed by Claudia Monti and on music performed live and Alessandra Ravizzawhich builds a sort of soundtrack in five movements: Yiddish songs and lullabies, references to the Palestinian tradition, electronics and samples, Arab folklore and pop song. Scenes and costumes I’m from Laura Benziassistant director Milo Prunotto. It’s a work that holds together body, sound and word, trying to transform history into theatrical material without reducing it to a proclamation.
Memory and responsibility: the line declared by the National Theatre
The words of are recalled in the material Michela Murgia on the topic of responsibility “not guilt”, and those of Davide Livermorewhich links theater to democracy of dialogue and to the comparison with “the Other”, reiterating memory as a foundation and not as a ritual. Inside this frame, Seven Jewish girls it is proposed as a public act: not a little altar, but a call to thoughts and actions that do not end in a single day.
The show is on stage from January 27th to February 1st: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 8.30pm, Thursday and Saturday at 7.30pm, Sunday at 4.00pm.
by Paolo Fizzarotti
