EXERCISES WITH THE AUDIENCE
by Antonio Latella and Federico Bellini
With the Pesaro engagement, BAT comes to an end—the journey undertaken through the three Testorian rewritings of Hamlet, from the screenplay for a film that was never made to Post-Hamlet, passing through the celebrated Ambleto, a manifesto work for the creation of a new theatrical language. During this close, physical engagement with Testori and his poetic imagination concerning the Danish prince—initially carried out in Pesaro itself and later landing at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano—not only did certain themes emerge that run transversally through the three texts, but also working methods that made it possible to approach a more private Testori, if you will, his passions and obsessions. Thus, the actors, for example, learned some rudiments of boxing, an art that deeply interested the poet; because in Testori the word is indeed an extraordinary deviation from everyday lexicon, but also a punch to the stomach, capable of striking anyone who crosses it as an interpreter or is struck by it as a spectator.
At the same time, thanks to a visit to Casa Testori in Novate Milanese, the working group had the opportunity to observe firsthand the close connection between Testori’s writing and his work in painting and drawing. For this reason, the actors were guided in learning portrait techniques, in respecting the proportions of a face or a body, and in exploring the countless suggestions that helped create the “Testorian world”—that action upon reality which goes far beyond the written page for the theatre, nourished by Testori’s own fundamental essayistic contributions and by his inexhaustible desire to intervene physically in the world, through his artistic works as well as through his long, much-debated public interventions in the social and political sphere.
This final phase of the work therefore presents itself as the concluding restitution of this journey, destined not to culminate in a performance but in research that does not intend to abandon experimentation and its possible forms—as happened, for example, with Post-Hamlet, where musical work modulated on the tempos and rhythms of rap made it possible to convey a terse, hammering, assertive verbal construction. Likewise, in the long textual analysis, no interpretative keys were sought to be assumed as absolute truths; rather, questions were pursued—questions that continue to interrogate us, especially in the development of Shakespeare’s characters as traversed by Testori in three entirely different works (in the case of the screenplay, even intended for a use of a different nature).
The actresses and actors, who carry in their memory much of all three texts, even in their entirety, will be called upon by Antonio Latella, during the public restitutions, to interpret passages chosen on the spot, without prior agreement. Because, as Hamlet himself states, “readiness is all.”
Ultimately, we hope and believe that the final public restitutions of BAT may open a door—perhaps more than one—to a shared study between artists and audience, in all likelihood one of the highest forms of cultural practice. Coinciding with Pesaro’s designation as Italian Capital of Culture, we believe that this attempt to place the audience before a living, still unformed matter—a matter that is research rather than formalization—and at the same time to allow it to participate in the process of study and become a subject of investigation by entering into communion with the artists, represents a great opportunity for everyone: an altruistic gesture that we believe can rightly be defined as an act of cultural politics.
To bring this experiment to completion, we could not but allow ourselves to be guided by an author like Testori, who made his linguistic research one of the most extreme and perilous revolutions ever enacted upon the Italian language—something that marked an uncrossable boundary: there is a before and an after Testori, in theatre and beyond. Something that, through the three stations of the Testorian Hamlets, is shattering, painful, and extremely provocative; at times scandalous, because we firmly believe that only those who know how to create and found new languages can be the authors of true scandal, of a cultural shock that forces us to reflect on what we think we know and on what we stubbornly refuse to know.
Thus, together with the audience of Pesaro, we will attempt one last time to dismantle the traditional mechanisms of what is called “representation,” to plunge together with the audience into the chaos and vital confusion of a creative process that may one day be remembered as a stage in the act of “making culture.” In other words, to ensure that everyday life is not merely “representation” but a continuous study of the book that we are and that we will become.
Final appointment with the Bottega Amletica Testoriana, which will take place at the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro from February 13 to 17 (6:00 p.m.–10:00 p.m.) and on February 18 (4:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.) as part of the Festival Testori. La scena della parola, a major event organized from January 17 to February 28 by AMAT and the Municipalities of Pesaro and Urbino, with the support of the Marche Region and the Ministry of Culture, under the patronage of the Giovanni Testori Association.
Photographs by Masiar Pasquali
THE PROJECT
BAT_Bottega Amletica Testoriana is a project curated by internationally renowned director Antonio Latella. A training programme running from September 2023 to February 2024 between Pesaro and Milan, with the aim of bringing together young actresses and actors with the poetics of Giovanni Testori on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. The training path is aimed at young women and men of Italian theatre who, despite having graduated only recently, retain the desire and willingness to study and share their research process with colleagues. The selected young actors are Noemi Apuzzo, Alessandro Bandini, Matilde Bernardi, Flavio Capuzzo Dolcetta, Michele Eburnea, Chiara Ferrara, Sebastian Luque Herrera, and Beatrice Verzotti.
The objective is to create a new generation of actresses and actors engaging with an author who is probably little known to them: Giovanni Testori, a great twentieth-century artist who made the word his primary field of artistic research. The work focuses on Hamlet. A Story for the Cinema, L’Ambleto, and Post-Hamlet—texts that become testament, narrative, and epilogue of a life and of an indefatigable artistic activity. The project seeks to give space to a new wave of talents, ready to ennoble their abilities and to care for them, through a study of the art of acting that the genius of Testori has bequeathed to us as a fundamental legacy.
The project is promoted by AMAT – Associazione Marchigiana Attività Teatrali for Pesaro Italian Capital of Culture 2024 (a project of the Municipality of Pesaro, the Ministry of Culture, and the Marche Region with Fondazione Pescheria), Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, and stabilemobile, in collaboration with the Giovanni Testori Association.