LA FESTA

Italiano| Foto | Rassegna Stampa

by > spiro scimone
with > francesco sframeli > spiro scimone > gianluca cesale
direction > gianfelice imparato
set designer and costumist > sergio tramonti
music > patrizio trampetti
assistant director  > leonardo pischedda
technical director  > santo pinizzotto
photo credits > andrea coclite
administratione > giovanni scimone
production > compagnia scimone sframeli
in collaboration with > fondazione orestiadi gibellina

prize candoni arta terme 1997 for the “new drama”

“La Festa” (The Feast) is a work of brief exchanges, made up of lines with few words, often just one. The text is almost musical, employing a syncopated rhythm which highlights the frequent repetition and variations along the same theme.
But it is these repetitions and variations which lead to an exploration of the possibilities offered by words, and their necessity. They are weapons sharpened by past experience with which the three characters measure themselves in a continuous referral to distorted episodes and to a past which is maybe invention.
A father, mother and son, trapped within the geometrical space of an abstract kitchen, the closed container of that familiar microcosm, talking back and forth to each other. What’s the weather like? Do you want milk in that? Did you sugar it? Is the water boiling? Just like formulas of a banal ritual which has been going on in exactly the same way for a very long time.
The feast of the title celebrates an anniversary, the thirty years of marriage the couple. It is the fundamental aspect of the game, which is precisely the act. Each of the three characters reads its part. The nagging mother emphasizes its role as a victim. The father who raise its voice to disguise his weakness and dependence. The arrogant son, who sits crouched hard-nosed, he has become the true master of the house, because he puts the money, darkly earned.
The game is tense, cruel, devastating. With a continued note of comedy. But there is a limit beyond which the game can not go on. The need to not get to a break, so the next day we can start it again, with the same words. With the same ritual.

The piece won the 1997 Candoni Arta Terme prize for new drama.