In Fondo agli Occhi
(Deep in your eyes)
In Fondo agli Occhi
(Deep in your eyes)
The Play
by and with Gianfranco Berardi Gabriella Casolari
directed by César Brie
Lighting and audio technician Daniela Vespa
Scenic elements Franco Casini and Roberto Spinaci
Musical collaboration Giancarlo Pagliara
In Fondo Agli Occhi is a play that addresses the theme of Crisis and the disease produced and derived from it. The investigation starts and develops from two different points of view: one real, in which blindness, a physical disease, becomes a special filter through which analyze the contemporary, and the other metaphorical, in which blindness is the condition of a whole angry and lost country that wanders in the dark looking for a way out. Who is blinder than those who live, without having a dream, a perspective in front of them, or those who, being aware of it, can do nothing but give in to despair? Enlightenment then: blindness, Gianfranco's illness is the metaphor through which to define Crisis, as a source of pain but at the same time an opportunity to re-evaluate the essential and get involved in the first person, revealing one for what he or she is. It therefore becomes inevitable to face the complementary aspect of the disease: the cure, the real experience that Gabriella lives on stage and in life. On stage, we see a bartender, Italia, disappointed and abandoned by her man, and Tiresia, her partner and blind lover. They tell their story, their missed dreams, their weaknesses and their hopes in a bar. They have been, are and always will be in "Crisis" like the country in which they live. The fiction, the mixing of experiences from the bar, autobiographical fragments and fantasies lead to the “depth of the eyes" of the writer and the listener.
Gianfranco Berardi is the free spirit of an untamed theatre: in his (and ours) darkness he lights up defiant flashes of intelligence, laughter and poignant sweetness. Cèsar Brie’s direction watches over with discretion, the complicity of Gabriella Casolari rounds off the excesses. It is useless to resist Berardi: even if you don't want to, he takes you deep in the eyes, in the parts of the heart.
So it's good for the heart and mind to see a histrionic Gianfranco Berardi (how can you not love him?) while he plays with his blindness, who challenges us, until he becomes a metaphor through which to tell the pain and the crisis of our times … The direction of this show that establishes the union between the Italian couple and the Argentine director is perfect.
Berardi's vitality grows continuously, his trip (that's the right word) can take on the most eloquent forms. On this occasion his name is Tiresia, he frequents an Italian bar that takes its name from its owner (Gabriella Casolari) he talks and talks about every topical topic.. his pleasure is this "beating your hypocrisy with a stick.
Poetic and symbolically intense moments, which surprise the viewer and delicately touch his humanity. An exceptional Berardi – histrionic, ironic and self-deprecating – to which the equally audacious Casolari acts as a counterpart in a very effective contrast. The combination is winning and balanced, able to stand up to even the most distracted spectator.
An impudent playwriting, an impertinent story marked by that heroism of joy that he carries with him on stage… Berardi has the rapid leap of someone who dominates space and time, gesture and words, and with Casolari he plays fast and gets the applause of the spectators who crowded the Sybaris Theater, sometimes incredulous.
An unripe and rancorous rap-outburst, but lucid and punctual, even if scratchy and full of aching bruises. What an Italian bar should be, where vices, many, and a few virtues mix in a single cynical mixture… A modern Cyrano, energetic, handsome, without pauses or excuses.
Cèsar's direction has something of jazz, a ragtime cheerfulness that seeks the tempo, to keep time, so that the actor can dance his overflowing solo, as Gianfranco Berardi is on stage… All, all of his theater is Deep in your eyes, just keep it on stage for it to be clear, deep in your eyes where that membrane between truth and representation is, that veil between things and their staging…
…an overflowing way of being an actor. Berardi does not represent but presents, he does not act but it is easy to come out annihilated. Berardi uses the audience as if it were a piece of his design as an actor, blowing away the mechanisms invented by many…
“In fondo agli occhi”, the new play by Gianfranco Berardi is deeply moving…on stage with a splendid Gabriella Casolari…A dynamic and engaging play, with witty cues and subtle political satire…in which the spectator feels involved and represented, a show with surprising passages. Moving and poetic.
A gigantic actor, Gianfranco Berardi, of whom one can write for example, that he has a rare mastery of the scenic space and of his body in space, that he has a fine and highly developed ear, with the risk that he will answer you « You don’t say? All blind people have it, didn't you know?», But above all because he knows how to find the seeds of making theater even where we would only see futile and weak pretexts.
This small play with great ambitions – all achieved – is really worth watching. While one smiles at the liveliness of the text and the fourth wall is repeatedly eliminated by the forays of the two into the room, the bitter taste of the truth about what is happening around us is very present. But one leaves the room with the doubt that it is still possible, perhaps, to take care of poor Italy.
Reviews
- L’Osservatore – 31 mag 2019 (Lucrezia Greppi)
- Quotidiano Libertà di Piacenza – 30 ott 2016 (Pietro Corvi)
- Corriere di Bologna – 25 mag 2015 (Massimo Marino)
- ilpickwick.it – 24 mar 2015 (Paola Spedaliere)
- notizieteatrali.it – 22 mar 2015 (Angela Matassa)
- [VISIVA] gagarin-magazine.it – 6 mar 2015 (Monica Rabà)
- ildispaccio.it – 1 feb 2015 (Lavinia Romeo)
- Emotion Pictures – 19 nov 2014 (Alessandro Izzi)
- le recensioni dei bambini di Sinnai: Gioia , Davide
- ellitoral.com – 10 ott 2014
- Radio Comunicar – 1 ott 2014
- eldiariodelfindelmundo.com – 15 sett 2014
- nonsolocinema.com – 31 gen 2014 (Marianna Sassano)
- persinsala.it – 20 nov 2013 (Daniele Rizzo)
- paneacquaculture.net – 27 ott 2013 (Vincenzo Sardelli)
- la Repubblica – 25 ott 2013 (Sara Chiappori)
- la Repubblica – 16 ott 2013 (Simona Spaventa)
- Corriere della Sera – 6 giu 2013 (Franco Cordelli)
- QuartaParetePress.it – 6 giu 2013 (Giulio Baffi)
- FermataSpettacolo.it – 3 giu 2013 (Andrea Vezzosi)
- TeatroeCritica.net – 1 giu 2013 (Simone Nebbia)
- Castrovillari.info – 30 mag 2013
- L’Unità – 28 mag 2013 (Francesca de Sanctis)