Pirandello

Pirandello’s The Giants of the Mountain

Pirandello’s The Giants of the Mountain

Stebos

Theaterlab, New York City.

On October 15, 2013 the Pirandello Society of America sponsored a reading I adapted and directed of Pirandello’s The Giants of the Mountain, with nine actors and two visual artists, who took turns at drawing the characters so precisely described by the author’s stage directions. The play is a “myth” between fable and reality that Pirandello continued to imagine, write, and rework from 1929 to 1934, but eventually left unfinished despite encouraging contracts with American impresarios. Yet, in its present form, the play vibrates with the powerful contradictions of sublime Art torn between the inner necessity to reach out to spectators who may not understand it and the temptation to abandon the world altogether. It was, in the playwright’s opinion, the culmination of his artistic endeavors.

The reading took place at Theaterlab and it was part of the series “NOT Made in Italy – Creativity as Displacement” and of the celebrations for the Year of Italian Culture in the United States.

For the evening’s program, click here.
A review was published by PSA, the journal of the Pirandello Society: you can read it here

Here are some of the drawings “performed” during the evening:

Chaz (from Luigi Pirandello’s Cece’)

Chaz (from Luigi Pirandello’s Cece’)

Stebos

Stevens Theatre, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA

An adaptation in four parts for the students of my Modern Italian Theatre course. Based on a list of physical actions, we devised and rewrote four versions of the same play, which was set, in turn, in an informal college environment, a morbid Eighteenth century, a flashback from the point of view of one of the minor characters, and a world of puppets.

An account of the theory underlying this course can be found in my article “The Short Play and Postmodernist Stage Directing: A Virtual Experiment with Pirandello’s Cecè.” published in Quaderni d’Italianistica 32.2 (2012)

 

 

 

 

 
The Giants of the Mountain by Luigi Pirandello

The Giants of the Mountain by Luigi Pirandello

Stebos

Teatro del Tempo, Parma, Italy.

With members of the Numeriprimi Company I organized a public lecture about Pirandello’s The Giants of the Mountain (I giganti della montagna) for the students of the Italian Lit course at the University of Parma (Prof. Marzio Pieri). It included a dramatized reading, with actors working vocally to portray the many roles each of them was called to play. While stage directions were read aloud, a visual artist drew each character on a series of large sheets, building up to the impressive final scene where each of them was visible simultaneously around the theatre.

Read an article published by the Gazzetta di Parma (in Italian):