Le Dissolute Assolte
(The Absolved Dissolutes)
by Luca Gaeta
Festival Internazionale del Teatro Romano – Volterra – Palazzo Viti – 2013
opening: Piccolo Teatro Campo D’Arte, Rome – 2012
role: Donna Isabella
alternate cast
photos: Christian Mantuano, Kill The Pig, Giorgio Mondolfo
In this itinerant performance, inspired by Don Giovanni’s “catalogue”, the audience is led by the servant from one room to another, where the story is told from the point of view of the seduced women: comic, dramatic, grotesque, sensual, as if after his death they had remained in the decadent place he used to go to, perpetuating with their tales their extraordinary experience.
The show was on for many months at the Piccolo Teatro Campo D’Arte in Rome, a subterranean place with caves, a brothel in days of old. The lighting was very low, mostly obtained by candles, and the spectators had no idea what they would meet next, as the characters are very different and can interact with the audience; in the last room they were offered wine and invited to stay for some time before the show would start again.
In order to promote the performance, on some evenings the actors would reach Campo dei Fiori square nearby in their costumes, half-covered by masks and mantles, inviting people to join and watch the story.
The cast was rather wide and alternated depending on availability, therefore the performance could vary considerably; some people came back to watch different versions of the show with different actors.
In the summer of 2013, the production was taken to Volterra, as part of the International Festival, to support the Roman Theatre which needed restoring and was not being granted funds. The performance took place in the ancient Palazzo Viti, using rooms on the first floor.
A smart-flash-mob event called “Bacchanalia” was organized by the director of the Festival Simone Domenico Migliorini the day before to attract attention to the funding issue, the parade being led by the cast through the town centre, reading or playing love-erotic texts, as far as the Roman Theatre, where wine and local food was offered.