Processo Galileo Andrea De Rosa / Carmelo Rifici

by
Angela Dematté
Fabrizio Sinisi

dramaturg
Simona Gonella

direction
Andrea De Rosa
Carmelo Rifici

with
Luca Lazzareschi
Milvia Marigliano

and with (in alphabetical order)
Catherine Bertoni de Laet
Giovanni Drago
Roberta Ricciardi
Isacco Venturini

scenes
Daniele Spanò

costumes
Margherita Baldoni

sound project
GUP Alcaro

lighting design
Pasquale Mari

assistant directors
Ugo Fiore
Marcello Manzella

dramaturgy assistant
Marzio Gandola

a production
LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, TPE - Teatro Piemonte Europa, Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale

in collaboration with
Association Santacristina Theatre Centre

by Angela Dematté and Fabrizio Sinisi

We were exploring the same things without knowing it. It often happens to work on topics and realise that, at that very moment, someone else is also asking the same questions. The natural solution would have been to give priority to those who had gone first. But the novelty was that the directors we were working with surprisingly decided to work together. This meant putting everything we were writing back into play with difficulty, but also being able to enrich each other's writing. The most complex issue was the apparent impossibility of reconciling two languages, two codes, two “approaches” - in short, there was the problem of getting two authors who were so distant in so many ways to talk to each other. We decided, with the help of Simona Gonella and the directors, not to dissolve this difference, choosing instead to preserve our authorial specificities as much as possible, imagining a dramaturgy capable of containing both. We believed that, for the spectator, it could be a fruitful experience to face a non-homogeneous, differentiated - “double” (indeed, as we will say in a moment, even triple) writing. We thus tried to construct a dramaturgy composed of two acts that - despite their diversity - could live in a continuous dialogue, through a creative process that was individual but also continuously shared and, therefore, collective. We ensured that themes, figures and questions resonated like long waves from one text to the other, establishing a kinship made up of echoes, cross-references, connections. The structures naturally interpenetrated. If the presence of the Scientist/Galileo was already decided as a constant in all the chapters of the text, the figure of the Mother, wise but conservative and earthly, guardian of an archaic and peasant knowledge, was added in a preponderant way. Then the problematic figure of a revolutionary boy, victim and executioner of technical evolution, was added. We imagined the character of Angela, a young researcher who is carrying out research on Galileo and the cultural and philosophical processes triggered off by his abjuration in 1633, as the trait d'union of the entire journey. Angela represents the point of view with which we wanted to identify. In this character we have also projected our own frailties and errors: the desire to want to understand everything without succeeding, the risk of approximation and inaccuracy, the sense of inadequacy that inevitably affects writers with a humanistic education when they are confronted with scientific language.

We wanted our texts to be preceded by a common prologue, in which the historical figure of Galileo Galilei - his path, his research and, above all, his trial - would emerge, leaving the seventeenth-century language almost intact. Through excerpts from Galileo's works, letters, correspondence, and court documents, Angela begins her research into his trial, evoking voices and figures: we hear the words of the scientist and those of his inquisitors, but also the voice of his very young daughter, Sister Virginia, and her equally young disciple Benedetto Castelli. We were very keen on the fact that both Virginia and Benedetto were always present, to suggest the idea that science lives not only according to the order of research and discovery, but also according to that of the transmission of knowledge; that knowledge also moves on the scale of countless, often silent generational transitions.

In the first act, however, we are in our present: Angela works on her research in the presence of her mother, who judges her intellectual explorations with an ironic and “earthly” gaze. The text here becomes autobiographical. Angela character as Angela the author interviews a scientist in search of answers, perhaps in search of a father who can give her a new language to support and endure the complexity of the moment she is living. But Angela also brings her mother onto the stage because she wants to understand how to hold together maternal wisdom and her need to know without limits. The writing of this first act is also nourished by a previous long documentary investigation (for LAC's Lingua Madre project) into contemporary man's relationship with the experience of mourning in the absence of a religious and ritual system.

In the second act, Angela questions the increasingly pervasive presence of the technical-scientific apparatus in the Western world. The starting point of her reflection is the revolutionary gesture made by Galileo in pointing his telescope at the stars. The rigid Aristotelian order of fixed stars, which imagined the earth at the centre of an unchanging universe, is broken forever. Those whom Angela summons to the stage in this act are therefore some of the voices of this revolution. There is a young woman who attempts an impossible catalogue of the stars. There is the disappointment of a young science student, who, starting with the scientific revolution initiated by Galileo, imagined the beginning of a world free of obscurantism, a rational world that never came. There is a peasant girl who witnessed, in 1604, the apparition in the heavens of a stella nova: an extremely rare astronomical phenomenon - the explosion of a supernova - on which Galileo gave an important lecture in Padua. It is she who gives voice to the astonishment of those who, convinced they were at the centre of a perfectly ordered universe, suddenly had to come to terms with the thought of inhabiting a small planet orbiting the sun within a boundless universe. Finally, there is a young political militant, who accuses modern science of having created an increasingly powerful and oppressive technological apparatus, with which the West has come to identify, entrusting its salvation to it.

by Andrea De Rosa and Carmelo Rifici

The origin of this work is singular: the strong experience of the pandemic had prompted both of us to work on our relationship with science, but we were completely unaware that we were carrying out parallel research on the same subject. When we discovered the “curious incident”, logic would have wanted one of us to give up the project but, against all custom, we decided instead to try to work on it together. Against all odds, we decided instead to try to work on it together. Beyond all results, what drove us on this path, with fear and enthusiasm, was the desire to show, above all to ourselves, that two directors with different styles and aesthetics could abdicate their total autonomy to enter into directing territory in which the focus on the subject was stronger than individual instances. The result, not artistic but human, was to defuse any temptation to prevaricate, in favour of an understanding based on respect and listening. To arrive at this result alone, the attempt was worth the effort. However, it would not have been of much use if the starting point had not been the same: we both had a desire to reason about the ever-growing impact that the technical-scientific apparatus exerts on our lives and our sociality. We wanted to do this starting with Galileo Galilei, the acts of his trial, the sentence of the Holy Inquisition and the scientist's abjuration, in order to explore the relationships that, today more than ever, link science to society and power. What has changed since that distant 22 June 1633? What has science, which was then forced to abjure, become? Where will its research go in the future?

In order for all these questions to find a “scenic form”, we worked for a long time with the help of two playwrights, and with them we went through, with patience and dedication, the precariousness and uncertainties that the very subject of our research imposed. We defined a free and open stage space in which the dramaturgy of lights, sound and costumes left the actors all the expressive freedom to bring the words chosen by the authors to life on stage. We chose to place a piano at the centre of the stage, we chose it as a symbol and trait d'union between the three parts that make up the performance because it is one of the most perfect and sophisticated machines that man has ever invented, a machine capable of generating beauty even though its operation is regulated by rigid and cold mechanical rules. In the first part, Angela - a young researcher who is our alter ego on stage - analyses the historical material documenting the trial of Galileo by the Inquisition, together with fragments of the “Dialogue of the Greatest Systems” and the beautiful and passionate letters that Virginia wrote from the convent to her father; in the second (written by Angela Demattè), Angela faces the dramatic attempt to combine her desire for knowledge with her being a daughter and mother; in the third (written by Fabrizio Sinisi), the young researcher finally gives voice to her philosophical and political anxieties about a future in which “machines” will be an increasingly integral part of our lives.

Angela Dematté
A playwright and actress born in Trentino, she chose Milan as her artist residence. After a degree in Literature and a diploma at the Accademia dei Filodrammatici, she worked as an actress until she began her activity as an author in 2009: she wrote Avevo un bel pallone rosso (I had a nice red ball ) and won the Riccione Prize and the Golden Graal Prize. The work is staged by Carmelo Rifici with whom she begins a profound research that produces, among others: L'officina, Chi resta, Il compromesso, Iphigenia, liberata and Macbeth, le cose nascoste. She works as dramaturg and author for directors Andrea Chiodi, Renato Sarti, Sandro Mabellini, Valter Malosti, Benedetto Sicca, Simona Gonella. She writes, directs and performs Mad in Europe, which won the Premio Scenario 2015 and the Premio Sonia Bonacina. In 2019 the city of Trento awards her the Aquila d'Oro Prize for culture. In her research she investigates the potential and limits of identity language, a topic on which she has created several masterclasses at Teatro Franco Parenti, Proxima Res, Karakorum teatro, Matearium teatro, ERT, Luminanze. Her work in recent years, starting with her collaboration with ISI Foundation, Joint Research Centre in Ispra and Carmelo Rifici at LAC, focuses on dialogue with science as a necessity to investigate future man. Pandemic prompts her to explore the contamination between theatre writing and new forms offered by the web. She writes and directs the documentary Un rito di passaggio (A rite of passage ) and works on the LAC Lingua Madre digital project, winner of the Hystrio Prize and the Ubu Prize. His texts are published in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany and Egypt. She works with major theatres such as Piccolo Teatro in Milan, Theatre de la Manufacture in Nancy and several Italian permanent theatres. She is the mother of three children.
 

Fabrizio Sinisi
Playwright, poet and writer, in 2012 he made his debut as a playwright with La grande passeggiata directed by Federico Tiezzi. Since 2010, he has been dramaturg of the Compagnia Lombardi-Tiezzi and, since 2019, resident artist of the Centro Teatrale Bresciano. Also active in opera theatre, in 2017 he made his debut at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with the melologue Ravel. He works permanently with major national theatres, collaborating with the most important directors of the Italian scene. In 2017, he published Tre drammi di poesia (Three Poetry Dramas), with which he was selected among the ten Italian authors of the international Fabulamundi project. He collaborates regularly with the daily newspaper “Domani” and the monthly magazine “Finzioni”. His works are also translated and performed in Austria, Croatia, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. He was awarded the American Playwrights Project, the Testori Prize for Literature and the National Theatre Critics Prize.

Simona Gonella
Director, pedagogue, playwright and dramaturg, she has a keen interest in new dramaturgy, adaptation of classics, creation and devising work and performing arts. After graduating in directing from the Scuola Paolo Grassi in Milan, she worked with the Teatro Settimo in Turin and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, for which she curated numerous European projects for training, writing and staging, and was a member of the Circle of European Directors of the Union of European Theatres.
She directs shows at the National Theatre in Timisoara, the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, the Chichester Theatre and the RADA/GBS Theatre in London. He collaborates, among others, with Carmelo Rifici, Andrea De Rosa and the Trickster-p company. In Italy he signs and adapts several works of new dramaturgy, civil theatre and children's theatre. In 2022, he directed his original version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. From 2007 to 2011, he was artistic director of Oda Teatro - Cerchio di gesso in Foggia.
He works as a teacher and trainer for actors, directors and playwrights. He translates texts by Martin Crimp and Alan Bennett; Dino Audino Editore recently published his Introduction to Theatre Direction.

Andrea De Rosa
Theatre director of prose and opera, from 2008 to 2011 he was director of the Teatro Stabile di Napoli, while since 2021 he has been director of the TPE Teatro Astra (Fondazione Teatro Piemonte Europa - Teatro di Rilevante Interesse Culturale). In his prose productions, he showed great interest in tragic characters from the very beginning, staging titles such as The Trojan Women and The Bacchae by Euripides, The Tenth Year by Euripides and Aeschylus, Electra by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller, Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel, The Tempest and Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Manfred by Lord Byron (with music by Schumann directed by Gianandrea Noseda), Phaedra by Seneca. These titles are flanked by work characterised by a more marked sense of theatrical/philosophical research, staging Encomio di Elena da Gorgia da Lentini, Tutto ciò che è grande è nella Tempesta (on Martin Heidegger), Studio sul Simposio di Platone, up to the more recent Autobiografia erotica by Domenico Starnone, Giulio Cesare (uccidere il tiranno) by Fabrizio Sinisi from Shakespeare, E pecchè, e pecchè e pecchè? Pulcinella in purgatory by Linda Dalisi, Satyricon by Francesco Piccolo inspired by Petronius, Nella solitudine dei campi di cotone by Bernard-Marie Koltès. His latest production is David Grieg's Solaris from the novel of the same name by Stanislaw Lem.
After his debut with Mozart's Idomeneo, in opera he ranges from the 20th century (with works by Britten, Maderna, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Azio Corghi) to 19th century melodrama (with numerous titles by Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti), to the early 20th century by Puccini and Granados. His productions are performed in major Italian and international theatres, including the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Teatro Regio in Turin, La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Teatro Mariinsky in St Petersburg, the Municipal in Sao Paolo, the Sao Carlos in Lisbon, the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg, collaborating with major conductors including Riccardo Muti, Myung Wung Chung and Valery Gergiev.
With Fedra, in 2015 he won the Premio dell'Associazione Nazionale Critici di Teatro (ANCT) for the best play of the year; in 2021 he received the Hystrio Prize for directing.

Carmelo Rifici
After graduating in Literature, he graduated from the School of the Stabile di Torino and became director collaborating with Luca Ronconi in Progetto Domani, the theatrical event of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin. He worked alongside Ronconi in the direction of Fahrenheit 451, Ulysses Double Return, Turandot, The Merchant of Venice. As a director he signs dozens of works. Napoli Teatro Festival commissioned him to direct Chie-Chan and I, from the novel by Banana Yoshimoto (2008). For the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, he signed the direction of I pretendants by Jean-Luc Lagarce, Puss in Boots by Ludwig Tieck (2009) and Nathan the Wise by Ephraim Lessing (2011). In 2010, he staged Lars Norén's Dettagli at the Piccolo and Euripides' Phaedra in Syracuse. He directed Buio by Sonia Antinori for Teatro Due Parma, Medea by Luigi Cherubini for the Ponchielli in Cremona, I puritani by Vincenzo Bellini for the Circuito Lirico Lombardo, Giulio Cesare by William Shakespeare and Visita al padre by Roland Schimmelpfennig for the Piccolo in Milan. Since 2014, he has been the artistic director of LuganoInScena where he directs Gabbiano by Anton Chekhov, Iphigenia, liberata by Rifici-Dematté, Purgatorio by Ariel Dorfman, the opera Il barbiere di Siviglia, Avevo un bel pallone rosso by Angela Dematté, I Cenci with music and libretto by Giorgio Battistelli - which in 2020 is on the billboard of the Biennale Musica in Venice and the Festival Aperto in Reggio Emilia -, Macbeth, le cose nascoste by Rifici-Dematté, Le relazioni pericolose, written in four hands with Livia Rossi, and the opera La traviata. In 2019 he signs the direction of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Ravel's L'heure espagnole at the Teatro Grande in Brescia. In 2020 he becomes artistic director of LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, a cultural centre of the City of Lugano. Since 2015, he has directed the ‘Luca Ronconi’ Theatre School of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 2005 he won the Premio della Critica as an emerging director, in 2009 the Premio Eti Olimpici del Teatro as director of the year, the Premio della Critica, the Golden Graal and is in the nominations for the Premi Ubu as director of the year. In 2015 he won the Enriquez Prize for the LuganoInScena theatre season, and in 2017 he won it again for the direction of Iphigenia, liberata. In 2019 he wins the Premio I nr. Uno awarded by the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Switzerland (CCIS) for his work at the LAC. In July 2021, he is awarded the title of Maestro by the Radicondoli Theatre Prize. In the autumn of the same year he received the Hystrio Digital Stage Prize and the Ubu Special Prize for the digital project Lingua Madre. Capsule per il futuro, conceived together with Paola Tripoli.
 

Luca Lazzareschi
He graduated in the 1980s from the Bottega Teatrale in Florence, where he studied with masters of the calibre of Orazio Costa Giovangigli, Vittorio Gassman and Giorgio Albertazzi. He tackles a vast repertoire of authors, alternating classical and contemporary, Italian and foreign works, participating, to date, in over seventy shows produced by major Italian public and private theatres and collaborating with the most important Italian directors. He is directed, among others, by Vittorio Gassman, Luca Ronconi, Marco Tullio Giordana, Roberto Andò, Andrea De Rosa, Carmelo Rifici, Gabriele Lavia, Pietro Carriglio, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Mario Missiroli, Gianfranco De Bosio, Glauco Mauri, Piero Maccarinelli, Memè Perlini, Walter Pagliaro, Werner Schroeter, Saverio Marconi, Guido De Monticelli, Mauro Avogadro, Massimo Luconi, Cesare Lievi, Luca De Fusco, Leo Muscato, Antonio Calenda, Marco Sciaccaluga, Lorenzo Salveti, Franco Però, Daniele Salvo, Lukas Hemleb, Andrée Ruth Shammah and Pascal Rambert.
Among the many roles he has played are Hamlet, Macbeth, Antony in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Alexander Herzen in Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Shore of Utopia, Orestes in Euripides'Orestea, William of Baskerville in the theatrical adaptation of The Name of the Rose, the Master in Giovanni Testori “s The Betrothed, Prometheus in Aeschylus” tragedy of the same name.
For the Roman Theatre in Verona, he directed the play Moby Dick by and with Franco Branciaroli.
He has participated in numerous television dramas and films, working with Gianni Amelio, Marco Bellocchio, Charles Sturridge and Rachid Benhadj, among others.
Three times a finalist candidate for the Ubu Awards and three times a candidate for the Le Maschere del Teatro italiano Awards, he received the Randone Award in 1999, the Theatre Critics Award in 2002, the Eschilo d'Oro Award in 2008 for his participation in the cycles of classical plays at the Greek Theatre of Syracuse, the Domenico Danzuso Award in 2014, the Veretium Award in 2012, and the Franco Enriquez Award in 2018. From 2011 to 2015 he was artistic director of the Festival della Versiliana.
 

Milvia Marigliano
Born in Milan but of Neapolitan origin, she graduated from the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan with a gold medal. She is directed by the best-known Italian directors and produced by the most prestigious theatres, tackling a vast repertoire of authors ranging from comedy to drama and dealing with both the great classics and contemporary dramaturgy. Among others, he has worked with Valerio Binasco, Arturo Cirillo, Andrea De Rosa, Lamberto Puggelli, Roberto Guicciardini, Silvano Piccardi, Dario Fo, Piero Maccarinelli, Mauro Avogadro, Andrée Ruth Shammah, Giorgio Gallione, Enzo Moscato, Massimo Navone, Gabriele Vacis, Cristina Pezzoli, Robert Carsen, Carlo Cerciello and Peppino Mazzotta.
It is worth highlighting some important experiences of performances performed in “language”, going from Neapolitan (ancient and modern) to Milanese, from Veneto to Bergamo.
In 2011 she was nominated for the Le Maschere del Teatro italiano Award for her performance in Romeo and Juliet directed by Valerio Binasco, a play for which she won the Premio Giovani di Roma in 2013. In 2015, she received the Premio dell'Associazione Nazionale dei Critici del Teatro for Lo zoo di vetro and Chi ha paura di Virginia Woolf? directed by Arturo Cirillo. She is nominated for the Le Maschere del Teatro italiano Award for two consecutive years: in 2016 for Ombretta Calco by Sergio Pierattini directed by Peppino Mazzotta and in 2017 for her performance in Lunga giornata verso la notte directed by Arturo Cirillo. In 2019 she is nominated for the Ubu Prize for Dario De Luca's Lo Psicopompo.
She takes part in television series and films: Paolo Sorrentino directs her in The Young Pope and in Loro 2; she plays Stefano Cucchi's mother in the film Sulla mia pelle by Alessio Cremonini. She took part in the film L'ospite, directed by Duccio Chiarini, the Netflix series Luna Park, directed by Leonardo D'Agostini and Anna Negri, and the short film L'ultimo dell'anno, directed by Fabrizio Provinciali.

Catherine Bertoni de Laet
Born in 1994, following her classical diploma, she undertook a scientific university course in Belgium. Back in Italy, she began her artistic training in Rome, where she worked with Fabiana Iacozzilli, Francesco Zecca, Lorenzo Gioielli and Francesco Sala. She then graduated from the ‘Luca Ronconi’ School of Theatre at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, where she met Antonio Latella, Romeo Castellucci, Mauro Avogadro and Serena Sinigaglia. As a performer she took part in Riccardo Favaro's production of Doppio sogno from the novel of the same name by Arthur Schnitzler, directed by Carmelo Rifici, with whom she also collaborated on the digital project Ci guardano - prontuario di un innocente. As assistant director, he worked with Filippo Ferraresi in his debut at Piccolo in Milan with de Infinito Universo and in La traviata directed by Markus Poschner and directed by Carmelo Rifici. He made his directing debut with Bogdaproste - che dio perdoni le tue morti, written in four hands with Francesco Maruccia and presented at the FIT Festival 2022.

Giovanni Drago
Born in Genoa in 1998, he graduated from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano's “Luca Ronconi” School of Theatre directed by Carmelo Rifici. During his academic career, he had the opportunity to study with some of the leading artists of the Italian scene, including Rifici himself, Mauro Avogadro and Antonio Latella. As a performer, he took part in Riccardo Favaro's production of Doppio sogno from Arthur Schnitzler's novel of the same name, directed by Carmelo Rifici at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. In 2022, he played Oreste in Euripides' tragedy of the same name, directed by Valerio Binasco in a production of the Teatro Stabile di Torino.

Roberta Ricciardi
Born in Rome in 1997, she graduated from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano's ‘Luca Ronconi’ School of Theatre directed by Carmelo Rifici. During her training she met Chiara Bersani, Fausto Paravidino, Paolo Rossi, Serena Sinigaglia, Mario Perrotta, Massimo Popolizio, Marta Ciappina, Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, Antonio Latella, Alessio Maria Romano, Fabio Condemi. She took part in Ci guardano - prontuario di un innocente by Carmelo Rifici in the role of Emily Dickinson, Happiness by Alessandro Sciarroni, Choròs - Il luogo dove si danza by Alessio Maria Romano and Doppio sogno by Carmelo Rifici.

Isacco Venturini
He attended the School for Actors of the Teatro Stabile di Torino, graduating in 2015. Since then he has been collaborating with Alessio Maria Romano (Silver Lion at Biennale Teatro 2020), working in Dispersi (2016), Choròs (2018), Il Maleficio (2019) and Bye Bye, a LAC production that debuts at Biennale Teatro 2020. He is directed by Andrea De Rosa in Giulio Cesare. Uccidere il tiranno (2017) and in E pecché? And why? E pecché? Pulcinella in purgatory (2019), where he is performer and curator of stage movements. Antonio Latella directs him in Santa Estasi. Atridi: otto ritratti di famiglia (2016, Ubu New Actor/Actress under 35 Award to the entire cast) and in L'isola dei pappagalli with Bonaventura prigioniero degli antropofagi (2019). He is directed by Leonardo Lidi in 95. Studio su Lutero (2018) and by Silvio Peroni in Il mago di Oz (2020). He is assistant director to Leonardo Lidi in Spettri (2018) and assistant choreographer to Alessio Maria Romano in the opera Fernando Cortez (2019). He is choreographer and performer in Calma Musa Immortale by Fausto Cabra.

LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura
07–09.11.2022 (debut)

Teatro Astra, Torino
12–20.11.2022

Teatro Storchi, Modena
24–27.11.2022

Teatro Fraschini, Pavia
02–04.12.2022

Piccolo Teatro Strehler, Milano
10–15.01.2023

Teatro Civico, La Spezia
17.01.2023

Teatro Sociale, Brescia
19–20.01.2023

Teatro degli Animosi, Carrara
16.01.2024

Teatro Vascello, Roma
19-28.01.2024

Teatro Biondo, Palermo
30.01.2024-04.02.2024

Teatro Mercadante, Napoli
06-11.02.2024

Teatro Stabile, Genova
14-17.02.2024

Teatro Ponchielli, Cremona
20-21.02.2024