“Chie-Chan and me” by Giorgio Amitrano from a novel by Banana Yoshimoto (Italy)
By Stefano • May 18th, 2008 • Category: Agenda| June 13, 2008 8:00 pm | a | June 14, 2008 8:00 pm |
CHIE-CHAN E IO
adaption by Giorgio Amitrano
from a novel by Banana Yoshimoto
directed by Carmelo Rifici
production Napoli Teatro Festival Italia and Mercadante Teatro Stabile di Napoli
13th, 14th June 8.00pm
First night
language Italian
duration 80
location: Teatro San Ferdinando
with Caterina Carpio, Alessia Giangiuliani, Pia Lanciotti, Guglielmo Menconi, Cinzia Spanò
set-design Guido Buganza
light design Jean-Luc Chanonat
director assistant Agostino Riola
stage assistants Claudia Castelli e Francesca Mottana
stage director Brunito Lanzoni
electrician director Marco Catalucci
wardrobe manifacture Silvana Fraschetti
particular thanks to FENDI for the collaboration
with the patronage of Fondazione Italia Giappone
«In this light yet profound book, Giorgio Amitrano says in his introduction to Chie-chan e io, Banana returns to some of her recurring themes: loneliness and the family as invention. As in Kitchen, a biological family is juxtaposed with an unconventional family unit formed out of emotional choices. (…)
As can be deduced from this brief synopsis, the novel’s plot is minimal. Not much happens, and the little that does often takes place off the page and is recounted only in the margins of the narration. (…)
How to adapt a text which superficially seems so impervious to dramatisation? There are hardly any characters and they have little dialogue. Unfortunately even the narrator’s antagonist, Chie-chan, hardly speaks, being introverted by nature. Building a standard script around these elements would have been difficult. Another solution had to be found, one which would hold the audience’s attention without sacrificing the narrator’s flow of thoughts, which is everything in the novel. How could this stream of consciousness be retained in a form other than a monologue?»
(Giorgio Amitrano, from “Presentation” to Chie-chan e io)
Amitrano comments: “How to adapt a text which seems so impervious to dramatisation? A solution had to be found which would hold the audience’s attention without sacrificing the narrator’s flow of thoughts, which is everything in the novel. How could this stream of consciousness be retained in a form other than a monologue? I imagined Banana’s text, basically Kaori’s interior monologue, flowing through the voices, the faces, the bodies of four actors; like a polyphonic game which only occasionally solidifies into traditional scenes, in which the text is divided into a play of words which bounces around recognisable characters.”
The production will take place in a minimalist and rarefied space, modern yet also drawing aesthetically on the Zen tradition. Something I have to mention is the characters’ LACK OF ROOTS, their obsession with recreating a new kind of family and so a new kind of place in which to live. The stage should have a kind of lightness, to give the audience the idea of flight, of a supple space in continuous transformation (i.e. without roots): an airplane, a restaurant, a boutique and a house which is not a house but an assembly of svelte white modules. Clothes just appear on stage, and with the same ease a dining table becomes a hospital bed, or a seat in a cinema becomes a seat in an airplane…all this to transmit to the audience Banana’s moving attempt to find a new and balanced vital space.
Director’s notes by Carmelo Rifici
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