With
Betty Andriolo
Linda Bobbo
Paola Brolati
Marta Richelieu
Dramaturgy and direction
Alberta Toninato
The show
Four English ladies, without husbands and without knowing each other, embark on a holiday in Italy.
The chosen location is a medieval castle perched on the Ligurian cliffs overlooking the sea.
What attracts the female travellers is an advert in the Times: the Mediterranean sun and the image of a wisteria growing on ancient stone walls become the mirage to chase, the Paradise on this earth to conquer and live.
The wonder of an April in Italy will be able to exert a real transformation in the four protagonists: the unhappiness from which each one comes will be redeemed by the beauty of the flowers and the sea, by the harmony that is created within a microcosm of very different women, who change and complete each other.
Director’s Notes
The show is inspired by the novel The Enchanted April by Elisabeth Von Arnim. In the rewriting, the narrative levels of the story and the dialogues are faithfully maintained in a constant interweaving. As in the novel, the registers alternate rapidly, from the comic to the poetic, to the dramatic. In the scenic rendering, the use of space, bodies, costumes and objects, is articulated in a precision mechanism, which accompanies the spectator in the harmonious development of the story. In little more than an hour, different places, landscapes, moods and relationships follow one another, ferrying the protagonists from the rainy greyness of London to the radiant wonder of an April in Italy.
The poetics
The show is part of the Pedagogy of Joy path, which Bottegavaga has undertaken for a few years: we believe that the search for happiness (i.e. the full flowering of the human being) is the basis of the health of the individual and the community. Our personal recipe for feeling WELL is theater: a theater that releases vital energy and that speaks straight to the heart. A theater that opens the doors to hope and that renews, in artists and spectators, the desire for life and beauty.
The group
From Marta Richeldi’s experience with the greatest Italian directors, including Ronconi and Servillo, to Linda Bobbo’s maturation in the street theatre in Barcelona, to Paola Brolati’s cabaret, to Betty Andriolo’s international training, to Alberta Toninato’s theatrical practice linked to the territory, five Venetian women unite around a common project, for the first time all together after having collaborated in various ways and intersections.
Duration
70 minutes
Technical requirements
Clear space of at least 6 x 6 meters
8 pc 1 kw with frames and flags
8 channels 2kw dimmer
DMX cables
programmable console
good quality audio system with adequate power for the room
1 x Monitor Speaker
1 x audio mixer with the possibility of connecting a PC
Photo @unionfotofederico
