Prometheus in Blues - Version 2007-2009
Idea and acting: Raffaele Schettino
Drammaturgy: Mara Calcagni and Raffaele Schettino
Musics: Raffaele Schettino, adaptation of traditional songs
Texts: ‘Prometheus Bound' – Eschil (traduction by Raffaele Schettino for the parts in English), Groucho Teatro
Scenography and dresses: Groucho Teatro, Giada Conte
Lights: Groucho Teatro
Video editing: Raffaele Schettino
Direction's advisor: Raffaele Schettino
Direction: Mara Calcagni
Production: Groucho Teatro – Centro di Ricerca Teatrale
Duration: 45 minutes
A personage who cannot die, as in the myth attributed to Eschil, writer of the ancient Greece. The solo performance began in the group performance 'Women and Resistance' where Raffaele Schettino, working on the fonts of the Prometheus Bound, characterizes the personage with his archetypes. With his autonomy the personage asks not to be abandoned: by this way the solo performance was born.
A man is abbandoned in the desert. His name is Prometheus. A Storyteller walks, alone, and with his guitar tell the myth about the theft of the fire. A history of loneliness and revolt, where two caracters on the stage interact dialectly on the stage of the History: Prometheus, the semigod who renunced to his privileges for an action of freedom, and the Storyteller, a comun man, whose revolt is hidden in the dayly life.
The Myth
Prometheus is the one who gave the gift of the fire to humanity without the permission of the Gods of the Olympus. For this he was punished by Zeus, condemned to stay bound on a remote rock of the Caucasus, with an iron eagle eating his liver. The fire for the men, 'defenseless as the children', is symbol and instrument of knowledge, of the Memory: 'the acting mother of the Muses' chorus'. Prometheus' courage and "humanitas" both let him suffer these pains, without death, because of his Titanic nature. He knows the secret of the future enthronization of Zeus, but his rebellious obstinacy doesn't let him reveal it, even if it should be the end of its pains.
Prometheus speaks a language not-understandable: the ancient Greek, a dead language, the echo of a mute scream of revolt. As the echoes have the power of reasoning in spite of the distance, so Prometheus' words vibrate in the conscience of the audience, in spite of the inaccessibility of their meaning. For this reason the text of the performance contains parts in ancient Greek (the original text) and others in current language (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or English, depending on the place where the performance is presented).
The Prometheus of ancient times starts to walk around the islands without time, in each place where a dominant power exists and lets his slaves in the ignorance. It comes to our days, where there are still heroes taking the chains of the oppressed: the revolutionaries of our times.
"We are Prometheus, Prometheus is me. His actions have the same meaning that the avanguardias in the present and in the past. Prometheus robes the gods' fire, the symbol of knowledge, and gives it to the humanity: he's condemned for this and pays for the emancipation of the oppressed multitude. The Power bounds him: the Power, the executive arm of the New Law, materializes his function for punishing those who dared to discuss the unjust rules of oppression".
Eschil, our ancient parent, continues living in the contemporary times, like all the writers of the ancient Greece. Their secret is the writing with archetypes, the matter that Groucho Teatro's performance try to investigate. The research of the archetypes in Eschil's text and their actualization is one of the targets that the performance is aimed to realize. Prometheus' value is his actualty: he is an avant-garde, his need of rebelling against the tyranny generates heavy conseguences, that he suffers with no repentance for his action. His action is a planned and scientific one and it breaks the plan and resigned reality, generating a Good (the fire, symbol of knowledge, which frees the humanity) and a Bad (the god's punishment, who wants to keep the exclusivity of the knowledge). Prometheus, for destiny, for need, takes the weight of the chains from his collective action.
The performance is affected by the training with the principles of Orixà's dance, focusing on the research on principles of Theatre Anthropology. It is an experiment of how the research on the archetypes, through the use of concrete symbols, ancestrally encoded in the Orixà's dance (that derives from the Afro-Brazilian ritual of Candomblé) revels the different qualities of potential energies present in the actor; these qualities of energies are used during the creation of the physical and vocal actions.
Presentations as performance:
Brasil:
Festival de teatro de Curitiba “Fringe” – March 2007 (Premiere)
Bolivia :
La Paz , Teatro de Camara – Abril 2007, patrocinio embajada de Italia en Bolivia
Santa Cruz de la Sierra , Café Lorca, sala de teatro Federico Garcia Lorca - Abril 2007
Argentina:
Buenos Aires, Teatro Baldio, May 2007
Brasil:
Sao Paulo, Sala Crisantempo, May 2007
Bolivia:
La Paz, FITAZ 2008, April 2008, patrocinio embajada de Italia en Bolivia
Perù:
Lima, Festival de Teatro Universidad UCSUR, Abril 2008, supported by Teatro Cuatrotablas
Lima, FITECA, May 2008, supported by Teatro Cuatrotablas
XI encuentro internacional de teatro de grupo en Ayacucho, Novembre 2008
As in a theatrical group, everything is done by the group's mebers. The process of creation is artisan and it is related not only to the creation of the scenic partitures and to their montage (direction), but also to the creation of the scenography and of the scenic costumes, to the lights' map and to the administrative organization of the group in general. This 'choral process' is testified by the spectators during the performance: Prometheus in Blues, even as a solo performance, is a testimony of this 'choral lung', which always breathes in the daily ritual of the group, in the social relations in and out of it.
As work-in-progress, Prometheus in Blues was presented to invited guests (actors, directors, professors and men of the theatre), with the aim of enriching the performance trough their suggestions. Between others, in this place, we'd like to thank: Antonello Antonante (director of Teatro Acquario, Cosenza), Carla Filosa, Carlos Simioni (actor-researcher of Lume Teatro, Campinas), Dimir Viana (director of Teatro Albatroz, Belo Horizonte), Lau Santos, Naira Gonzalez (director of Centro Teatrale Umbro), Norberto Presta (director of Via Rosse), Tony d'Urso.
With this aim, that we call 'metodology of presentation-with-feedback', Prometheus in blues was presented as a work-in-progress, in:
Italy:
Rome – Arci Nazionale
Bologna – Palazzo del Paleotto, Xm 24 occupato
L'Aquila – Brucaliffo Teatro
Cosenza – Centro RAT (Ricerca Arte Teatrale), Teatro dell'Acquario
Venice – Nodo Teatro
Milan - CIRT
Brazil:
Campinas (SP): Taba das Artes, Espaço Semente
São Paulo: USP
Belo Horizonte (MG): Centro Cultural UFMG
Diamantina (MG): Escola das oficinas
Nova Lima (MG): Encontro Internacional de Teatro 'Linha Trasversal'
Rio de Janeiro: Casa do Teatro de Anônimo
Pedro Leopoldo: Teatro Municipal
Salvador de Bahia: temporary center of Groucho Teatro
Click here to watch the VIDEO PROMO
Photo Gallery
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