Towards a Mediterranean Ensemble

The dramaturge Eva-Maria Bertschy in conversation with director Simone Mannino and actor Jamel Madani

Bertschy

When we started working on Prometeo, you told me about the idea of founding a Mediterranean ensemble in Palermo. You’ve been on the road a lot as a set designer, artist, director, all over Europe, in Turkey, in Russia, but this would be a project worth committing to in the city where you grew up. You want to build something here. How do you envisage that?


Mannino

When Peter Brook founded the global Ensemble and the Centre international de Recherche théâtrale back then, he was in a crisis. He asked himself the question: Why theatre? So he set out on a two-year journey with an ensemble of actors from different cultures  to explore this question and confront new forms of theatre. When they returned from the trip, they had used up all their money. Peter Brook and his wife then travelled to the USA, where they met a millionaire who gave them a few millions. They were thus able to build Le Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, in an old theatre à l’italienne that had been empty for years and was totally run down. 

That’s about how I imagine it: the search is in the journey and the question is always the same. There are many unused theatres in Palermo that could be suitable. I already have my eye on one, of course. All I need now is to find a millionaire. (He laughs.) The question of financing is central of course. You can’t do anything without money. And in southern Italy, cultural subsidies are less generous than in Germany or France. 


Madani

That’s exactly why you should consider whether you would perhaps prefer to found the Mediterranean ensemble in Tunisia. Tunis would be a good place for it. I’m not saying that because I grew up there and love this city. But because in Tunis you can do much more with little money. Everything is much more expensive here and people still earn very little. At the same time, Tunisia is one of the only countries in the Arab region where there is subsidised theatre and the government is actually interested in culture. 


Bertschy

Does the Mediterranean Ensemble need a location at all? 


Mannino

It doesn’t necessarily need a location. In my mind, however, it is important for it to be located somewhere. Palermo seems interesting to me because of its geographical location in the centre of the Mediterranean. And also because Sicily never really belonged to Europe and Tunisia was always closer than the north of Italy. At the centre of the Mediterranean ensemble, however, is not so much a place as an association of artists, i.e. actors from all the countries around the Mediterranean. “A strange sight, to scrape the seabed and see bodies raining down on you. I have seen millions of them, swimming over Tunis, Palermo, Alexandria, Marseille, Algiers, Athens, Beirut, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Tangier, Tripoli…”, says Prometheus in our play. It is a matter of developing a common theatrical language, and perhaps even a Mediterranean theatrical circuit.

Sicilian director Simone Mannino in the rehearsal with the Tunisian actors Jamel Madani and Aymen Mabrouk at Teatro Montevergini in Palermo. © G. Costa

Bertschy

We took a first step with “Prometeo” by asking actors from Tunisia and Italy to participate. 


Mannino

Of course, that brings with it the very pragmatic difficulty that we have to communicate in one language in rehearsals. And then there is the question of which language we speak to the audience. We have only become accustomed to watching theatre from other linguistic areas since we started regularly using surtitles in the theatre. In “Prometeo”, the actors speak Italian and Arabic on stage. It wasn’t that complicated to find actors in Tunisia who also speak Italian. Tunisians have a lot more connections to Italy than you might think at first. 


Madani

There is a whole district in Tunis that we call “la petite Sicile”, a former harbour district. We used to have only Italian television at home. The Italian language is very close to me, even though I don’t speak it and had to relearn it for the play. 


Bertschy

But it’s also about a physical and gestural expression of the actors that is shaped by theatrical cultures, acting schools and styles that are very different depending on their origin. 


Madani

These differences are mostly superficial. If you cry on stage as an actor, everyone understands. When we get to what is human, the cultural differences are no longer relevant. 


Bertschy

So is it about finding a common humanity? 


Madani

A Tunisian actor who has often played in Italy – a storyteller – used to say, at the beginning of the performance: When we walk along the beach in Italy, we step with our feet into exactly the same sea as in Tunisia. We are fatefully connected to each other. We cannot defend ourselves against it.

Prometeo: The Blue Kangaroo gathers a transnational ensemble of actors and artists based in Palermo and Tunis to work on a new theatrical creation – an original rewriting freely inspired by the figure of Prometheus, directed by Sicilian-born director and set designer Simone Mannino, conceived and written with political writer Lorenzo Marsili. In a time of an incipient climatic collapse and a profound systemic crisis, the work explores the relationship with the flame of techne, oscillating between instrument of liberation and new slavery. The executive production of the piece is executed by the Palermo based Atelier Nostra Signora in co-production with Teatro Biondo.

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