"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

The Nightingtale and Other Fables

20120127-110131.jpg

Il celebre regista e attore canadese Robert Lepage, lo stesso che hià si era misurato in Giappone con The damnation of Faust, è sbarcato al Muziek Theater di Amsterdam il 12 gennaio e ha stazionato fino al 22 con il suo stupefancente The Nightingtale and other fables, dalla omonima raccolta. Una mistura originale di teatro cinese, sotto l’ala protettrice della direttrice d’orchestra americana Xian Zhang, teatro delle ombre, teatro d’acqua vietnamita, teatro dei burattini e concerto lirico, con l’orchestra che, dagli spalti insieme al pubblico, esegue pezzi dalle opere minori di Igor Stravinsky. Un’esperienza multisensoriale che, come nel miglior teatro cinese, prende per mano e invita a lasciarsi alle spalle ogni schema preconcetto, ogni domanda, invita a lasciarsi suggestionare e stupire, a lasciarsi stupire e suggerire, in una lingua sconosciuta qualcosa di straordinariamente familiare eppurr tanto difficile da afferrare. «Visioni gioconde innanzi a occhi pensosi», come direbbe la mia amica Clarissa: «occhi delicatamente indagatori; occhi cui la vita appare musicale, misteriosa; occhi che ora si accendono per osservare, gioviali, la beltà dei garofani rossi che Lady Bruton (i cui movimenti sono sempre spigolosi) ha deposto accanto al piatto». Ma non sono gli occhi di noi nel pubblico: sono i burattini cinesi, che dal palco ci scrutano come a volersi vedere riflessi in noi e ad invitarci, gentilmente, a vederci riflessi in loro. Un’esperienza straordinariamente emozionante.

books and literature

S.S. Van Dine’s The Scarab Murder

S.S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888–1939), an art critic, editor, and novelist from the US who created Philo Vance, apparently one of the defining amateur detectives of the Golden Age of detective fiction. The Vance series ran to twelve

Read More »
books and literature

Classic Science Fiction Stories

This is the third collection I read from these charming little light-blue books with the golden pages, and they’re uneven at best. Once again, as such, I have mixed feelings about this collection and I’ll have to proceed scientifically to give a rating, so here

Read More »
architecture, engineering and construction

Artificial Integrity in the Age of Anxiety

In 1947, British-American poet W.H. Auden published The Age of Anxiety, a long poem subtitled “A Baroque Eclogue”. In a nutshell, four strangers meet in a bar on Third Avenue in Manhattan, on All Souls’ Night, so it’s even seasonal, in the middle of a

Read More »
Share on LinkedIn
Throw on Reddit
Roll on Tumblr
Mail it
No Comments

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RELATED POSTS

S.S. Van Dine’s The Scarab Murder

S.S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888–1939), an art critic, editor, and novelist from the US who created Philo Vance, apparently one of the defining amateur detectives of the Golden Age of detective fiction. The Vance series ran to twelve

Read More

Classic Science Fiction Stories

This is the third collection I read from these charming little light-blue books with the golden pages, and they’re uneven at best. Once again, as such, I have mixed feelings about this collection and I’ll have to proceed scientifically to give a rating, so here

Read More

Artificial Integrity in the Age of Anxiety

In 1947, British-American poet W.H. Auden published The Age of Anxiety, a long poem subtitled “A Baroque Eclogue”. In a nutshell, four strangers meet in a bar on Third Avenue in Manhattan, on All Souls’ Night, so it’s even seasonal, in the middle of a

Read More