Reviews

Between theatre and choreography, but also painting and music, fairy tale and ceremony, Macbettu meets with favour wherever his tour leads. The Shakespearian tragedy finds itself reincarnated in living matter that history allows to last.

– Katia Berger, La Tribune

Macbettu is not based on dialogue alone, as visuality and movement expression play equally major roles in the whole. It is a complete artwork by Alessandro Serra that offers the spectator magnificent, breath-taking visions.

– Anni Saari, Keskipohjanmaa Newspaper

Enthralling, visionary and apocalyptic. Like a Myth. It has evocative power as well as a contemporary sense of the tragic, recalling the wars displayed daily on televisions’ small screens, with their charge of mourning and tragedy.  

– Walter Porcedda, La Nuova Sardegna

About Macbettu

Shakespeare’s Macbeth, performed in Sardinian and, in the pure Elizabethan tradition, by an all-male cast. The idea originated in the course of Serra’s photographic coverage of the carnivals in Sardinia’s Barbagia region. The gloomy sounds of cowbells and ancient instruments, the animal skins, the horns, the cork. The power of the gestures and of the voice, the kinship to Dionysius and, at the same time, the incredible, formal precision of the dances and chants. The sullen masks, and the blood, the red wine, the forces of nature tamed by man. But most of all the dark winter. Surprising are the number of analogies between the Shakespearian masterpiece and the variety of masks found in Sardinia. The Sardinian tongue transforms into chant what in Italian might remain mere literature. An empty playing space, animated by the bodies of actors that create settings and conjure up presences. Stones, earth, iron, blood, warrior stances, vestiges of ancient Nuragic civilizations. Matter that does not convey meanings, but primordial forces that act upon the receiver.

Credits

Based on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Director: Alessandro Serra

Performers:

     Leonardo Capuano – Macbettu

     Giovanni Carroni – Banquo

     Andrea Bartolomeo – Witches

     Stefano Mereu – Witches

     Felice Montervino – Witches

     Maurizio Giordo – Witches

     Fulvio Accogli – Lady Macbeth

     Carroni – Malcolm Andrea

     Stefano Mereu – King Duncan/Lennox

     Felice Montervino – Macduff

     Maurizio Giordo – Macduff’s son/The Porter/Ross

     Andrea Bartolomeo – Murderer 

Translation into Sardinian and language advisor: Giovanni Carroni

Collaborator for movement on stage: Chiara Michelini

Music: sounding stones by Pinuccio Sciola

Sounding stones compositions: Marcellino Garau

Set, lights and costumes: Alessandro Serra

International tour manager: Laura Artoni

Production: Sardegna Teatro and compagnia Teatropersona

Chinese script translator: Xu Xuan

This project has been supported by Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai.

About Alessandro Serra

Trained as an actor studying physical actions and vibrating singing, since a young age he has practiced martial arts and used them as a complement to his theatrical training. Having graduated in Arts and Performing Studies from the Sapienza University of Rome, in 1999 he founded Compagnia Teatropersona. Between 2006 and 2011 his research on scene as a pure material resulted in a “Silence Trilogy” (Beckett Box, Trattato dei Manichini and Aure). In 2009 he made his first play for kids, Il Principe Mezzanotte, which played more than 200 times, in Italy and abroad. In 2013, his play Il Grande Viaggio – play tout public – was about immigration. During 2015 his theatrical research approached dance, hence L’ombra della sera, dedicated to Alberto Giacometti’s life and work. In the same year he created H + G. In 2017, he conceived and directed Macbettu, produced by Sardegna Teatro, and Frame, dedicated to Edward Hopper’s world.

About Sardegna Teatro

Sardegna Teatro has been recognized by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities as a Theater of Relevant Cultural Interest. The Sardegna Teatro project— under the direction of Massimo Mancini—operates a model open to networks of local operators, national partnerships, international vocation, interdisciplinarity, multidimensional paths, continuous learning and active community involvement. The venues are Teatro Massimo of Cagliari and TEN - Teatro Eliseo di Nuoro, where Sardegna Teatro experiments with community projects, connected to the peculiarities of the territories and to virtuous processes of change and transformation.

The concept takes into account the characteristics of the territory in which the creative action happens: in line with the reflection of Gilles Clément, "We must think of the margin as a research area for opportunities arising from the encounter with different environments,” insularity is conceived as a space of freedom, a field of experimentation and research in which the artistic action is consonant with social contexts.

These ambitious tasks innervate a plurality of actions, addressed both to migrants and to skilled professionals who inhabit or cross the Island, in coordination with a co-planning network between the Cagliari area festivals: 10Nodi - the Autumn festivals in Cagliari, a rich multiplicity of artistic contents, including contemporary dance, experimental music, site-specific performances, children's literature and cross-media installations.