Villa dei misteri
Directed by Ivan Stanev (Bulgaria/Germany)
Set design Alexander Schellow
Costumes Heidi Müller
Music Marc Lingk
Lighting design Jörg Bittner
Assistant Director Pierre-Yves Bazin
Video Tappo Kontakt
Production Amelie Deuflhard, Marion Baumgartner
Starring
Michaela Stella Bagnoli, Josephin Graf, Gina Yadegari, Amélie Jalliet, Grischa Kofman, Krylon Superstar, Jeanette Spassova, Gabriel Walsh, Paul M Waschkau
Costumes Heidi Müller
Music Marc Lingk
Lighting design Jörg Bittner
Assistant Director Pierre-Yves Bazin
Video Tappo Kontakt
Production Amelie Deuflhard, Marion Baumgartner
Starring
Michaela Stella Bagnoli, Josephin Graf, Gina Yadegari, Amélie Jalliet, Grischa Kofman, Krylon Superstar, Jeanette Spassova, Gabriel Walsh, Paul M Waschkau
Premiere: November 23, 2001 in the Sophiensæle (Berlin, Germany)
Coproduction Ivan Stanev and Sophiensæle, Berlin, La Rose des Vents, Villeneuve d’Ascq (France), Théatre de la Bastille, Paris (France), THEOREM (association supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union), Théâtre Antoine Vitez, Aix en Provence (France), et Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf (Germany).
« The place determines the action. The Villa dei Misteri next to Naples has to be replicated on stage in all its splendour . A complex machinery has to bring frescoes alive and change the scenic space: here a ruin, there a restaurant, here a porno cinema, there a cabinet of mirrors.
The play uses an idea from Pirandello ; Baudelaire, Artaud, Quinard, Maïakovski, Nietzsche, Burroughs, Gasset, Euripide, Marinetti... are quoted. But this is a new text for the stage that has to be written by the director.
The Villa dei misteri is a Roman theatre, a modern dance, a futuristic time in space. Famous authors, artists and actors meet there to experience something authentic. They are obsessed by the idea of being « true », by true stories and the excitement of authenticity. But only the great stars can have access to this club, and they need to be well and truly dead. Those who still look too alive can procure mortal masks of celebrities: an orgy with Mayakovsky, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Marinetti… They are looking for an author from the world beyond. Dionysos is buried in the cave, and a horrible smell announces his return: he is the author, the deus ex machina. For reasons of descretion, we can't reveal how this Mystery unfolds : you have to experience it.
Archaic Dionysian mysteries encouter the futurist obsessions of a hi-tech century. The sacred is deflowered by the secular. The dead have the right to borrow fresh flesh. The Villa dei Misteri is a sacred place of pilgrimage for insatiable tourists who find even a time-machine that travels back through the centuries too slow. »
Ivan Stanev
Visit Ivan Stanev's website (in German) : www.ivan-stanev.de
The play uses an idea from Pirandello ; Baudelaire, Artaud, Quinard, Maïakovski, Nietzsche, Burroughs, Gasset, Euripide, Marinetti... are quoted. But this is a new text for the stage that has to be written by the director.
The Villa dei misteri is a Roman theatre, a modern dance, a futuristic time in space. Famous authors, artists and actors meet there to experience something authentic. They are obsessed by the idea of being « true », by true stories and the excitement of authenticity. But only the great stars can have access to this club, and they need to be well and truly dead. Those who still look too alive can procure mortal masks of celebrities: an orgy with Mayakovsky, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Marinetti… They are looking for an author from the world beyond. Dionysos is buried in the cave, and a horrible smell announces his return: he is the author, the deus ex machina. For reasons of descretion, we can't reveal how this Mystery unfolds : you have to experience it.
Archaic Dionysian mysteries encouter the futurist obsessions of a hi-tech century. The sacred is deflowered by the secular. The dead have the right to borrow fresh flesh. The Villa dei Misteri is a sacred place of pilgrimage for insatiable tourists who find even a time-machine that travels back through the centuries too slow. »
Ivan Stanev
Visit Ivan Stanev's website (in German) : www.ivan-stanev.de
