Austria – Castellucci's Societas at the Wiener Festwochen
Romeo Castellucci is a regular guest at the Wiener Festwochen, which this year welcome him presenting two of his productions -La vita nuova and The Metopes of the Parthenon.
The Festival, which wants to be “a place for imagination and dissent”, introduces Castellucci as an artist «who has had a profound impact on the European theatre scene», creator of ‘provocative’ shows «consistently triggering heated debates» but whose «powerful œuvre demands that through the performing arts a new, unmediated understanding of existence occurs».
In La vita nuova a group of men in a deserted and dusty parking lot are looking for a new beginning for humankind, a better way of living together. But better than what, since they do not believe any longer in present-day forms of social life? These ‘brothers’ want to construct ‘new domestic and aesthetic hearths’, rebelling against the dictatorship of perceptions and habits.
In The Metopes of the Parthenon a series of ambulances appear, one after the other, on the scene of a just occurred accident. The feverish scenes narrate with absolute verisimilitude the victims’ various traumatic states, the ‘river in flood’ of human sorrow (so Castellucci writes in the director’s note, and the Festival advises sensitive spectators of the shocking images -maybe disturbing- the show contains). Observing the suffering of others transports us into a parallel world in order to take a look at our own world, at our physical bodies, at our spiritual beings.
- more La vita nuova, from May 29th to June 2nd
- more The Metopes of the Parthenon, from June 7th to 9th