XVII International Performance School
More than thirty performers, alongside young people from our local area, bring loneliness to the stage. And magic. Soledad is, in fact, loosely based on Gabriel García Márquez’s novel *One Hundred Years of Solitude*: the Bombicci garden becomes Macondo, a village that is both real and magical; its inhabitants are like us: good yet dirty, naive yet capable of causing harm; vulnerable, passionate, sad, in a land where wheat does not grow. The gypsies arrive every year, bringing their wind of primitive circus, of instinct, of seductive acrobatics; they bring their knowledge that seems occult. Progress arrives, and for the inhabitants, ice is a precious diamond, the magnet pure witchcraft. The train connects Macondo to the rest of the world, yet they remain alone, fragile amidst yellow butterflies, swallowing earth, marvelling, fearing, dying tragically.
This experience forms part of the wider project Il Teatro delle Radici: in an atmosphere of internationalism we find our homeland, we find the blood, the breath that unites us, we find a lullaby that comes from the past. Now more than ever we need it; now, seen from afar, we are points of pain, trifles of imploded fear. We are alone in our desires, alone in our consumption, in wanting ever more; and with what indifference we dress in mourning, with what simplicity we remain unmoved. We are alone in a cosmic solitude.
When
18 July 2008 – 20 July 2008
Where
Giardini Bombicci – Fucecchio
