written for the house program of the Piccolo Teatro, Milan, October 2008
I prefer to work late into the night. Before the birds wake and long after the noises of the city have died away, I find solace and comfort in the cradle of darkness. There is a certain magic hour in the dead of night when one is free to consciously dream without fear of being mocked by the world. And in this hour colors come to life, forms animate and time stands still.
Lighting Luca's forest attempts to reveal a dream; a waking dream? Color, intensity and form of light need not be of our daytime earth. The players should move within a void; space and time are elastic. We are free to journey everywhere within the night. Shadows help reveal intent.
The theater is our forest: in it we play, we love, and we dream.
Luca's transformation of the Piccolo's particular theatrical space for 'Sogno' is conscious and deliberate. Creating the light was challenge. Designing a solution meant contrasting the light and clarity of day/civilization/humanity with the darkness and mystery of night/the wild/realm of fairies and gods. Color and form are the key to this scheme: by keeping the human world restricted to tones of warm and cool, the wild of the forest world may jump out in pungent and saturated colors; the open and clear light of Athens yields to the shadow and uncertainty of Nature.
Unfortunately, in art and in often life, it is sometimes difficult to know where the world ends and the forest begins.
