By Giorgio Di Marzo
Dear Massimo, the first question is obligatory: what is art?
Art is an expression of ourselves and of our own individuality in everyday life; we must live with art inside ourselves instead of spending the entire life running after it as if it was something outside ourselves.
As we focus mainly on Italian artists, we are also interested in knowing why a theatrical actor and director like you moved from his own country to face up a new adventure in Great Britain.
First of all it has to be said that London is the European capital city for theatre; it is the first place where you can find theatre below the line – like mine – and above the line West End and musicals, which unfortunately is what has the main currency in Italy.
Instead, I am interested in deconstructing the text for reconstructing it in order to find different energies which the author may even have wanted amplified. London is probably the only place where experimentation is really possible: Italy, though if I would like it did, has not given me these opportunities yet.
How did you face the linguistic problems?
I must say that I was one of the first foreigners, more that 10 years ago, to be admitted at the Drama Centre London. I could already speak English, but before enrolling at the Drama Centre I studied for one year to improve my English and pronunciation. There is also an advantage in linguistic differences: if you say casa [NoA: house in Italian] you have a certain mental image, if you say house you have a different one and this gives more depth to things; there certainly is an advantage in being able to act in a different language then, but is very difficult because you have to break down the linguistic barrier and must be free and comfortable otherwise you will never enjoy these benefits.
How do you see, instead, the cultural difference?
No doubt there are huge cultural problems! These English are flabby, spiritually dead, cynical and sexually repressed… but obviously they will never admit it!
Your interpretation of the play You are Right if You Say So is following the talk show style: do you think Pirandello would have liked this approach?
In the original version the audience was already in the play as the citizens. And furthermore, as Pirandello himself says, the work of the author is over when he writes the full stop: afterwards it does not belong to him any longer, it has to be changed, interpreted and revised. Each person who watches it makes it in a different way and he accepts this, so I believe he would have approved, as STAGE has also written in their review.
Among your directions we find authors such as Ionesco, Chieti, Erba, Hare, Lorca, Pirandello, Schnitzler, D’Annunzio, Goldoni, Odett: is there any guiding thread in this choice?
No, there is not any. I choose both well known and unknown stories, always trying to demolish and reconstruct the text, even with classics. Even Shakespeare, I would not take it as it is: the best Shakespeare I watched was King Lear interpreted in kabuki style by actors from the Japanese avant-garde theatre who cut 95% of the text out. Often the movement expresses more than words, and this is an advent of the English theatre – the physical theatre – that in Italy does not exist: they think the physical theatre is theatrical gestures.
Did you write any play?
No, I would say that I prefer to destroy what somebody else writes, for giving it my personal interpretation then.
In what language do you think your “personal interpretations”?
Both Italian and English. I miss a lot the Italian spirit: I have been away from Italy for 25 years and speaking, thinking and writing in Italian is a salvation anchor from insanity.
Any project you are working on?
I would like to do a modern version of Lorca, very physical.
What difficulties will an Italian who wants to do theatre in London face?
Apart from the language, we must say that the English are racist. It is difficult, for example, that they will assign you, as an Italian actor, the principal role of a play by Shakespeare set in Italy; they cannot, because you would be different from all the other fake Italians, so Italians often have to be content with very mean roles.
What has the audience response been to your You are Right if You Say So?
I must say that even the more traditional Pirandellians were quite happy of my re-interpretation, of the presentation, the lights, the music… I was not, instead, being a perfectionist!
Do you want to add anything for your audience and ours?
You are right, if you say so…
Massimo Marinoni is a theatrical actor and director.
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