Hurlyburly

1998 Hurlyburly

by David Rabe

Directed by Francesca De Sapio

Teatro Anfitrione , Roma

CAST

EddieALESSANDRO VANTINI
Phil VITO VINCI
Michela LUCILLA DIAZ
DonnaLETIZIA LETZA
DarleneGRAZIA SCHIAVO
BonnieKATY MONIQUE CUOM
ArtieBRUNO DE STEPHANIS

CREW

Set Design ANDREA CRISANTI
Costumes ISABELLA MONTANI
Lighting MARCO PONTECORVO
Translation and adaptationFRANCESCA DE SAPIO & TIZIANA LA TORRE
Executive ProducerVITO VINCI
First Assistant DirectorALBERTO ALEMANNO
Assistants DirectorEGLE DORIA - SERGIO VALASTRO
FANNY LA MONICA
Stage ManagementCLAUDIO DI BENEDETTO
Production CoordinatorROBERTA FABRIANI
Assistant Set DesignCARLO RESCIGNO
Set PhotograferCARLO BELLINCAMPI
Stage ConstructionMASSIMO PETROLINI
Press AgentCARLA FABI & BARBARA GHINFANTI

Director's Notes

Pandemonium of witches: The opening lines of Macbeth:
"When the Hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won."
The shouting bedlam pandemonium of witches = Hurlyburly.
Why I chose it:

Los Angeles, Las Vegas,
Drugs, television.
Not only drugs in a literal sense, but the destructive pandemonium of the mind.
The hell and fragmentation of today's world.

"We live in dark times" says Eddie,
Mickey, his friend, answers: "People always say that times are dark".
Which one of two is more passive and cynical, pretending to be positively rational and professing the truth?"

Las Vegas is mentioned six times in one short paragraph, described as a monster that needs to be conquered:
vulgar, opulent, corrupt in it's stupidity.
It is difficult to think that Las Vegas is like Riccione. Or that Los Angeles is equivalent to Rome or Milan.
I preferred to keep the original locations.

LA Confidential, Beverly Hills, Hollywood Hills,
Television, cinema.
The images that we introject have become part of the collective unconscious of the entire world.
By now, America is inside all of us.
Colonialism by means of images.
Why adapt the script? We are slaves of ourselves.

The story of desperate fools, lost souls.
Eddie talks all alone and drunk to TV hosts, to the news, to TV shows .
Grotesque humor.

Scenery

Over-surreal
The surreal created by a Magrittian broken window frame, looking onto the ocean.
The realistic portrait of the characters in contrast with the hard cutting light design.
The hot-cold of California, the desert,
Las Vegas, desert of the soul.
Vulgar, loudly sentimental, like Bonnie the stripper.

The house's architecture is geometrically harmonious.
The rest is chaos: glasses, liquor bottles spread about, scraps of paper,
scripts, books, a dictionary, hanging jackets, pop corn, junk food, cocaine.

Colours

Cold sunsets
orange, dawn, terracotta, ice blue, desert sand, azure.
Leaf-green:
Dusty vegetation enters,
climbs up the wall.
A turgid richness dreamt and lost.
It seeps through the windows, like Eddie's ideals, Phil's innocence.
Donna, tender and ill equipped, lets those who don't even need her, fuck her, all for a joint, a bed, a little affection in return.
Bonnie's savage pain, her trust and friendship betrayed,
Soft-porn dance
Disorder order.

The humor is born from a rationalization that justifies the most disconcerting violence.

Music

Fast rhythm, compulsive talk.
Incoherent free associations
"There is a logic in this madness"
Fragmentation.
Jazz. Coltraine. The soul's pain. Strident.
Country music reflects teenage Donna's rustic American dreams
that she carries in her wanderings like a ragged doll
of her lost and never left childhood
She has no need to comprehend what she call's a "Mystery"

FRANCESCA DE SAPIO