Between actors and puppets
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 19, 2024
Theatre and politics, as the ancients used to know, are strictly bound and it is improbable that the theatrical scene is alive when the political one dies or disappears. And yet, in a country where politics now seems to be made up only of mummies who claim to direct their own exhumation, it was possible in the last few days to watch in a small Venetian theatre a performance so full of life and intelligence that the members of the audience — as should always happen at theatre — came away more aware and almost regenerated physically. Such a miracle did not happen by chance. Piermario Vescovo, in his exemplary knowledge of the history of theatre, has clearly resorted to a tradition that is apparently minor, but in truth, especially in Italy, certainly major, that of puppets. But he did it — and here is the novelty — combining the presence of the bodies of six actressses with that of the puppets which they hold and move, so that between the living and dead, between the imposing bodies of the actresses who act and the gaunt but no less present bodies of the puppets an incommensurable exchange occurs, in which life passes incessantly in both senses and it is not clear whether, in the end, it is the actresses who move the puppets or the puppets who shake and animate the actresses. Nunzio Zappella, one of the last great Neapolitan guaratellari [puppeteers — translator’s note], showing his small, now worn out Pulcinella once said: “he is my father!”. Perhaps the mystery which occurs between the puppeteer and his puppet could not be more effectively defined. But Vescovo, by ingeniously grafting the Japanese bunraku onto the tradition of Italian comedy, has done more: he has transfigured a minor text by Goldoni (L’Incognita/The Unknown Woman — which had no longer been performed since the author’s death) into something provocative and fiercely topical. The lesson that can be drawn from this is that the debacle of every institution, not only political, that we are experiencing not necessarily does make us impotent: it is always possible to find in the past and keep even in the most adverse conditions the vernalised seed which, in proper time, will not fail to disclose itself.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, November 19, 2024
Theatre and politics, as the ancients used to know, are strictly bound and it is improbable that the theatrical scene is alive when the political one dies or disappears. And yet, in a country where politics now seems to be made up only of mummies who claim to direct their own exhumation, it was possible in the last few days to watch in a small Venetian theatre a performance so full of life and intelligence that the members of the audience — as should always happen at theatre — came away more aware and almost regenerated physically. Such a miracle did not happen by chance. Piermario Vescovo, in his exemplary knowledge of the history of theatre, has clearly resorted to a tradition that is apparently minor, but in truth, especially in Italy, certainly major, that of puppets. But he did it — and here is the novelty — combining the presence of the bodies of six actressses with that of the puppets which they hold and move, so that between the living and dead, between the imposing bodies of the actresses who act and the gaunt but no less present bodies of the puppets an incommensurable exchange occurs, in which life passes incessantly in both senses and it is not clear whether, in the end, it is the actresses who move the puppets or the puppets who shake and animate the actresses. Nunzio Zappella, one of the last great Neapolitan guaratellari [puppeteers — translator’s note], showing his small, now worn out Pulcinella once said: “he is my father!”. Perhaps the mystery which occurs between the puppeteer and his puppet could not be more effectively defined. But Vescovo, by ingeniously grafting the Japanese bunraku onto the tradition of Italian comedy, has done more: he has transfigured a minor text by Goldoni (L’Incognita/The Unknown Woman — which had no longer been performed since the author’s death) into something provocative and fiercely topical. The lesson that can be drawn from this is that the debacle of every institution, not only political, that we are experiencing not necessarily does make us impotent: it is always possible to find in the past and keep even in the most adverse conditions the vernalised seed which, in proper time, will not fail to disclose itself.
(English translation by I, Robot)
橫尾忠則 (Tadanori Yokoo), 文樂《椿說弓張月》 (The Bunraku Play, Chinsetsu Yumihari-Zuki), 1970. Courtesy of M+. |
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