For Further Press Information: William Murray or Heidi Feldman P R E S S (718) 636-4129 BAM THEATER PRESENTS LEGENDARY ITALIAN DIRECTOR GIORGIO STREHLER PRODUCTION OF THEMOVN1AJNGJAN1'S BY LUIGI PIRANDELLO THE BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC (BAM)
AMERICAN PREMIERE, EXCLUSIVE VISIT FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY BAM OPERA HOUSE APRIL 26 - 30, 1995 FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY BY STREHLER'S THEATER COMPANY ~}L PICCOLO TEATRO DI MILANO, Ir~ MORETHAN 40 YEARS BAM THEATER 1995 SPRING SEASON BRINGS THREE OF THE WORLD'S LEADING THEATER DIRECTORS TO NEW YORK
Hailed as one of the great achievements by the legendary Italian theater director Giorgio Strehl er,
the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) presents the American premiere of The Mountain Giants.
Performed by his company, Il Piccolo Teatro di Milano , Strehler has reconstructed Luigi
Pirandello's last play which will be presented for five performances , exclusively in this country , from
April 26 - 30 in BAM's Opera House, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.
The BAM Theater spring season brings together three of the world's leading theater directors on
BAM stages beginning with Peter Brook's The Man Who, March 11 through April 9 for 27
performances; followed by Strehler and II Piccolo Teatro di Milano production of The Mountain
Giants; and, as part of a New York Citywide celebration of the life and work of Ingmar Bergman,
produced by BAM, the Royal Dramaten of Sweden will present four performances of
Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and four performances ofYukio Mishima'sMadame de Sade, both
directed by Mr. Bergman, beginning May 31.
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~~OO~lrNACADf MrOf MU~IC 30L afayette Avenue, Brookly n, NewYork 11217 -14867 18.636.4129 FAX718.857.2021 Telex 298 .293.BAMUR/CableAcadmusic America'sOldestPerlorming ArtsCen ter 2
Italy's greatest stage director and one of the world's most famous theater directors, Giorgio Strehler has reconstructed The Mountain Giants, that was left unfinished at the time of the playwright's death in 1936. Adapted and dramatized by Pirandello's son, Stefano PirandelloG._ e Mountain Giants, tells the story of a company of travelling actors and magicians lead by a countess who arrive at a villa owned by Cotrones, a wizard and illusionist, and inhabited by an equally strange group of people; the mountain gi~
The Mountain Giants is often designated by scholars as one of Pirandello's "mythic" plays because time and location remain undetermined and Pirandello has bordered the work between fable and reality thereby giving the play a magical quality. The Mountain Giants unveils the many faces of theater and reflects the life of theater itself: comedy, tragedy, folk play, pantomime and puppet play.
Pirandello juxtaposes a human world by contrasting between spoken (represented by the comedians) and written word (the giants), but ultimately the play is dedicated to poetry that battles a world that has lost its human nature.
At the same time, Strehler's staging of The Mountain Giants is a metaphor for economic and ideological conflicts in the world of art and theater . And when Pirandello says: "The Mountain
Giants are the triumph of fantasy, the triumph of poetry , but at the same time also the tragedy of poetry in this brutal, modem world," he suggests what Strehl er states nearly 60 years later : "We became these giants in the trap of daily life every time we tum away from poetry and humanity. That is the meaning and purpose for the choice of a text that is freshly illuminated by the historical context in which we live: a society which is more and more determined by its own structures , a society which each day becomes more insensitive to and disapproving of the arts and which almost willfully renders itself incapable of comprehending and loving poetry ."
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Strehler, who redefined the Italian stage with his Piccolo Teatro, presented his last production in the
USA in 1984 during the Summer Olympics Cultural Festival in Los Angeles. He has rarely visited
New York and in fact the company's last engagement in New York City was in 1954. Though he has never personally come to the United States with one of his own productions, he plans to attend the
BAM performances. As in performances in Europe, Strehler himself will step on stage to introduce the newly adapted ending which will be performed as a mime play. To respect the playwright's work,
Strehl er only recreated the action, not the writing of the play.
Strehler's work is revered and celebrated on the stages ofltaly and Europe, including La Scala; the
Theatre de l'Odeon in Paris, the Salzburg Festival, Vienna's Burgtheater, and Hamburg's
Schauspielhaus. His productions encompass both classical and contemporary drama and opera, in
Italian, German, French, including many major works in translation for Italian audiences.
Strehler was born in Italy in 1921, where he started his theater career as an actor. During the second world war he was member of the Italian resistance movement against the fascist regime in Italy, and later emigrated to Switzerland. Returning to Italy in 1947, he founded together with the chief drama critic and editor of the leading Milanese financial paper, 1/ Sole, Paolo Grassi, the Piccolo Teatro which opened with the production of Gorky's The Lower Depths. In 1982 Strehler became a commander of the French Legion of Honor and the following year was named director of the Theatre de l'Europe in Paris, a company established as a federation of Europe's most important state supported theater companies. He served in this position for six years before reaffirming his full-time commitment to his company in Milano. Strehler is also one of the world's leading theatre theorists and has published several books on theater and opera staging.
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The Piccolo Teatro established the first permanent theater ensemble in Italy and was the first company to receive a government subsidy. From its birth, the theater almost evenly divided its repertoire between classics and new works, and between Italian and foreign productions. Today, the
Piccolo Teatro is a self-contained organization with a training school and permanent troupe of twenty to thirty actors. Strehler has also invited well-known foreign directors to present works at the Piccolo . Strehler himself has staged 200 productions for his Piccolo Teatro encompassing revivals of the classics, contemporary foreign works and new Italian plays. Strehler's work is noted for its questioning , lively intelligence and brilliant theatrical flair. The company tours extensively in
Italy and has visited more than 30 foreign countries around the world . Over the past four decades, the Piccolo Teatro has come to be considered not only Italy's finest troupe, but one of the best in the world . The company has served as a model for the development of other theaters in Rome, Turin, and elsewhere in Italy.
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) is recognized as the preeminent 20th century playwright of the Italian language and is best known among English-speaking audiences for his one-act play Six Characters in
Search of an Author . He is celebrated for his symbolic dramas and satires, which aroused much controversy because of their alleged obscurity in the 1920s. In both his dramas and his fiction, Pirandello explored the many faces of reality. His characters are invariably confronted with the problems of several truths or realities, depending upon the individual point of view.
Pirandello's ouvre includes some memorable novels, chiefly II Ju Matha Pascal ("The Late Mattia
Pascal," 1904); and Uno, nessuno, e centomila ("One, None, and a Hundred Thousand," 1926;
1933). His best known play Six Characters in Search of an Author was written in 1921, other plays include Casie se vi pare ("Right You Are! If You Think So," 1918,); Enrico IV(l923); Come tu mi vuoi ("As You Desire Me," 1930); La nuova colonia ("The New Colony," 1928); and his last play I giganti de/la montagna ("The Mountain Giants," 1938).
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Pirandello wrote over two hundred short stories and several essays. During his early career, he was professor of literature and founded his own theatre in Rome, with the financial backing of Mussolini's government and took his own acting troupe on tours throughout Europe. He was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934.
The Mountain Giants will be presented from April 26 through April 30, 1995 at BAM's Opera House, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY . Ticket prices are $40, $30, $20 ($50 premium) and may be purchased over the phone by calling Ticketmaster at (212) 307-4100 or in person at the BAM Box Office located at 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. For ticket information or to make reservations on the BAMBus, call (718) 636-4100 .
The 1994/95 season of BAM Theater is supported by: Booth Ferris Foundation ; The Gladys Kriebfe Delmas Foundation; The Howard Gilman Foundation ; The Norman and Rosita Winston Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley Group Inc.; Dow Jones Foundation ; Richard B. Fisher; The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust; The MetroTech Downtown Fund International Tour supported by: The Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs; The Italian Presidency of the Ministry Council-Department of Performing Arts The BAMBus is sponsored by Brooklyn Union.
The BAM facility is owned by the City of New York and its operation is made possible, in part, with pubic funding provided through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with support form the Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council and Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden.
### P R E S S PICCOLO TEATRO DI MILANO
Founded in 1947 by Paolo Grassi and Giorgio Strehler , the Piccolo Teatro di Milano was the first permanent theater in Italy which was publicly funded (subsidized by city, state , regional and federal support .) The theater's initial mission has been the presentation of theater performances in conjunction with the creation and development of cultural events, an aim that has been fulfilled throughout the theater 's history.
Before the creation of the Piccolo Teatro , Italian theatre, unlike the rest of European theatre which is most often permanent, was (and still is to a certain extent) comprised of traveling theatres and companies which would perform in foreign countries. With the aim of breaking this tradition , the Piccolo Teatro established itself as a permanent theater , settling in Milano . It laid not only its foundation as a theater, but also as a center for artists to meet and exchange ideas, philosophies and acting methods . The Piccolo became a place where artists started to work collectively, nurturing and influencing their artistic work and development. Around this "idea of theater" as a means of communication and exchange and with Giorgio Strehler's impact, soon a group of collaborators ; directors , stage designers and technicians worked on several productions together , sharing their firm belief in a "theater of art" .
Precisely in order to keep this belief alive, the Piccolo Teatro has always tried to train and build up a core of leading actors many of which have been at the Piccolo from day one, others have returned to perform at their "home" theater in Milan.
The Theater 's focus on European acting and directing structures and ethics has been the link to Europe and its cultures , resulting in invitations to perform many of its productions
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~~OOHYNACAD~MY OfMU~IC 30L afayette Avenue, Brookly n, NewYork 11217-1486 718.636.4129 FAX718.857.2021 Telex298.293. BAMUR/CableAcadmusic America'sOldestPerforming ArtsCenter all over the continent. The Piccolo 's first foreign tour dates back to 1948/49 when the theater took Gozzi 's If Corvo to London , Paris, Zurich and Knokke Le Zoute in Belgium . From 194 7 to the present , with 46 years of constant activity, the Piccolo has staged more than two hundred plays (more than 14000 performances), most of them directed by Strehler, others directed by leading European directors, and some staged by young directors who trained at the Piccolo Teatro.
In its artistic direction, the Piccolo has followed the same criteria already evident in its earlier productions : To produce leading writers and their works such as Gorky's L'albergo dei poveri, Salacrou's Le notti dell'ira, Calderon de la Barca's II mago dei prodigi and Goldoni's Harlequin Servant of Two Master s. On the one hand, the Piccolo has always supported the great family of the classics, considering them as not merely an empty legacy, but as a guiding star with a humane and artistic .itinerary and therefore eternally relevant to any modern day audience . On the other hand, the Piccolo has also strongly supported works of contemporary artists whose works represent the many changes of a developing society (Le notti dell'ira) and has collected and comprised productions of leading European writers of the recent past (Gorky's L 'albergo dei poveri) .
In addition to its dedication to writers from the past and present, the Piccolo's policies has been to focus on Italian theater which traditionally contributed most clearly to the performance of text (as for instance the Commedia d'ell Arte) rather than to writing. Carlo Goldoni's work remains the very center of this tradition, a work which has represented and continues to represent the Piccolo's essential contribution to Italian and European theater. From Harlequin to Gli innamorati, from The villeggiatura Trilogy to Baruffe chiozzotte, from Campiello to the Memories, the plays of Goldoni have been over the years regular attractions on the Piccolo Teatro's stages , with over twelve productions ( directed for the most part by Strehler , but also by Cesare Voco Lodovici and Orazio Costa) . New proposals for Harelquin underline the importance of this work - without a doubt Goldoni's most famous work . For years Harlequin has been the herald, in all its
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different versions, of Italy's stages .
Apart from Goldoni, the Piccolo has also favored other writers, such as William Shakespeare, who, with ten stagings of his plays, from Richard II to The Tempest, was subject of a critical research that resulted in new translations and a constant stream of studies written about his work. Plays such as Coriolanus, King Lear and The Tempest, all directed by Strehler, helped to throw a new light on and raise new questions about Shakespeare's drama .
In the great family of those forefathers , production of Chekovh ( The Seagull, P latonov and two versions of The Cherry Orchard), and of Pirandello (both versions of The Mountain Giants, Tonight We Improvise and the recent As You Desire Me) have been memorable achievements, along with the rediscovery of the Milanese writer Carlo Bertolassi .
The Piccolo will also be remembered for being the "home" of Brecht productions in Italy, first with a performance by the Piccolo's drama school, and later with the first version of The Three Penny Opera ( 1956) which was performed in the presence of Brecht himself and later, in 1972, was reproduced in a completely different version . Dedicated to Brecht's theater, Strehler presented two versions of The Good Woman of Setzuan ( 1958 and 1981), Schweyk in the Second World War and the memorable Galileo, all examples of critical and aesthetic approaches which were entirely different from each other.
The basic policies of the Piccolo and of Strehl er are definitely not exhaustive of a theatre that has also staged works of authors such as Ibsen and Strindberg, Genet and Beckett, Lessing and De Filippo, writers chosen according to thematic studies, close relationships and unifying aesthetics . The Piccolo's philosophy is to discuss universal themes which go beyond borders, language barriers and aesthetics, and stresses issues such as political history, human adventure, illusion, reality, theatre and life. Presented via different styles, -3- \ these themes are always concerned with the human being, with his worries , his capacity ' for error and injustice , but also - as Satin says in The Lower Depths - with the miracle - man. The most recent result of such research was last season's Faust I and Faust II by Goethe, which followed a series of plays, films, receptions, recitals and concerts during the previous season .
With the intention of making the training of actors the central theme of its work , the Piccolo Teatro opened an acting and directing school in 1988. Since 1986, the Piccolo Teatro has run "The Teatro Studio " which is the headquarters of the Piccolo's acting and directing school: and became over the years a meeting point for European theatre and its actors . Although small (piccolo) in size, the auditorium seats 550 spectators), the Piccolo Teatro's achievement have been of great value in Italy and throughout Europe, thanks to its technical , artistic and administrative staff With a team of about 150 artists, technicians , collaborators and administrat ive staff, the Piccolo Teatro has presented more than 200 plays, touring them in Italy and Europe and to the United States .