Roma Patria Comune


Roma Patria Comune

Rome Common Homeland

This performance was inspired by a masterly work entitled “Roma Patria Comune”: created and directed by Professor Filippo Bettini, it is the first Thesaurus which is dedicated to the presence of Rome in the history of poetry of all times and from all over the world. Rome Common Homeland was still staged to the Odin Teatret the last September during an artist residency and will be performed to the Argentina Theater in Rome in the spring of 2017. The focus in this performance is therefore on poetry but, as in every work directed by Federica Altieri, it never fails to communicate with the other arts, such as music, photography, and video making. Maria Letizia Gorga’s recitation and singing are very intense and rich in emotion, modulating from Scandinavian poetry masterpieces which are inspired by the Eternal City, to songs written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, from poems in Roman dialect by Belli, Trilussa, Pascarella, to prose telling the audience about Rome: a double, triple, multiple city. Rome, the city hosting the Vatican, is at the same time a profoundly pagan city, which Pasquino – a statue that since more than five hundred years is the Roman people’s voice – describes, criticizes, depicts with biting and provocative tones. Excerpts from Fellini’s “Roma”, photos by Paola Favoino, videos by Claudio
mmendola, show to the audience a multi-faceted city: lively, attractive, abandoned, decadent, between dream and realism, religion and materialism. Moreover, through the centuries Rome has been visited, inhabited, and chosen as one’s home by human beings of different nationalities, ethnical and/or religious groups, thus making the Eternal City a multi-cultural one. The music is played by Marcello Allulli, Giovanni Ceccarelli, and Ermanno Baron, including original compositions, own arrangements, and improvisations, contributing in the shaping of a multi-faceted image of Rome: welcoming and presumptuous, sweet and aggressive, pathetic and deep, desperate and austere, ancient and modern: a duality which involves the ideas of both chaos and logics. Odin Teatret artists Ulrik and Rina Skeel bring their precious contribution to the performance: the former by reading some Danish poems in the original language, the latter by singing songs by Gabriella Ferri, both by interacting on stage with the Italian artists. The performance is conceived to gather contributions about Rome from all over the world and to be seen by an international audience: for that reason it uses literary, poetry and cinematographic contributions in Danish, English and Italian.