Simon Jenner June 13th 2024
There’s a special thrill to see an English-language play rendered in another language. Its structure is laid bare, its rhythms and feel shift; other performative traditions can radically alter its delivery. But something radical abides too. And some plays seem ripe for treatment.
Caryl Churchill’s 1997 Heart’s Desire in an Italian translation (as L’Amore Del Cuore) by Laura Caretti and Margaret Rose, proves ideal in its eternal rewinds and re-runs. A litanic, sly ritual creeps up on you. The same scene plays with variations worthy of Groucho Marx out of Beckett, translated to Dario Fo with the glums. Directed at the Coronet by Lisa Ferlazzio Natoli till June 15th, there’s a sense of commedia dell’arte in a strait-jacket, sometimes exploding. One of the funniest short plays in English is deliriously at home in Italian.
Surtitles project from two screens either side of the performance: one is sometimes occluded by the actors.
Over an hour a family – father, mother, aunt, brother – await the return from Australia of 35-year-old daughter Suzy. The same scene, now truncated, only slowly completed, reruns as what’s uttered is overlaid with what each character wants to say. Same words, different outcome, different cut-off. Familial savagery lurks. Each character shifts in their anxieties, prejudices and resentments.
Brian the father wants to pick up Suzy from the airport; mother Maisie thinks she’s old enough to navigate the last bit of the world herself. Yes, but spontaneous meeting counts for something. At other moments these anxieties reverse. Alcoholic brother Lewis and aunt Alice add disruptive and withdrawn notes.
So who’s responsible for the two terrorists bursting in and killing everyone? Or a gout of schoolchildren running through the room? Or an angry emu straight from Oz? Or a young woman arriving declaring she’s Suzy’s partner, but Suzy’s not coming?
Unlike other productions, there’s a grey-green screen flickering into a liminal glow each time this is invoked. It emphasises the cerebral, rids us of the absurdist carnival usually presented. Only the emu survives, but not when it’s bidden.
That emu’s the only spectacle and we’re forced to attend just to the actors. A clean empty set with sound designed by Alessandro Ferroni places everything up-front. Omar Scala’s lighting is an occasional blinder of lenses levelled direct from upstage. Camilla Caré has dressed the actors in green-grey too. Only Francesco Villano as Brian repeatedly reaches for a mustard cardigan from a stand which tantalises with other vividly-coloured jackets he never dons. Bright possibilities not taken. Which sounds a necessary metaphor for the whole production.
The words though are given the most phenomenal set of variations I’ve seen in a Churchill play. Some moments are delivered at stupefying speed by Alice Palazzi (playing Maisie), beyond ones I’ve heard in English. Happily Italian seems designed not to trip up. Undistracted by theatrics, we get the drama of words, the absurdities pile on so we’re closer to Beckett’s Purgatorial world of cyclic repeats.
Villano downstage is repeatedly assailed with his wannabe-patriarchal Brian role challenged by everyone else. “Basta” comes across more assailed in Italian than the original. It’s he who utters the final words giving the play its title, themselves faintly disturbing. Tania Garribba (Alice) stills everything with a burning resentment. Fortunato Leccese (Lewis), rushes in to sprawl on the table and exits for long moments. Tessa Battaiotto though present voices offstage.
This is a beguiling and persuasive enough production for Churchill herself to attend press night. Certainly not the only way to experience this exuberant small masterpiece, it’s the most attentive to the grammar of what’s being said; the structure of feeling.
An absolute gem, it’s only on for two more performances. Since the UK’s greatest living playwright is often more recognised abroad, it seems fitting her importance is brought home in another language to gales of laughter. Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.
Heart’s Desire/L’Amore Del Cuore
Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.
The Coronet Theatre
The Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill
http://www.thecoronettheatre.com
Caryl Churchill’s 1997 Heart’s Desire in an Italian translation (as L’Amore Del Cuore) by Laura Caretti and Margaret Rose, proves ideal in its eternal rewinds and re-runs. A litanic, sly ritual creeps up on you. The same scene plays with variations worthy of Groucho Marx out of Beckett, translated to Dario Fo with the glums. Directed at the Coronet by Lisa Ferlazzio Natoli till June 15th
Anyone admiring Churchill, ferocious comedy or excited by a rare UK foray into Italian theatre must see this.
Written by Caryl Churchill. Italian Translation Laura Caretti, Margaret Rose, Director Lisa Ferlazzio Natoli, Sound Design & Set Design Alessandro Ferroni, Lighting Design Omar Scala, Costume Design Camilla Caré, Images/Video Maddalena Parise, Production Photography Sveva Bellucci, Assistant Director Flavio Murialdi,
Co-produced by Teatro Vascello, La Fabbrica dell’Attore & Iacasadargilla.
Supported by Theatron Produzioni, Bluemotion & Italian Cultural Institute.
Till June 15th