mission
Theatre: It can be done by narrating the day in which the ghost appeared, pretending that the ghost is here or trying to make the ghost appear. The latter is a bit mad, but it is the only trial that interests us.
Actor: a human being
The human investigation is the starting point. The actor, as a human being, has the central role – they immerse themself in the social, economic and cultural contexts that they set out to tell. It is Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin who offers himself to everything and lets himself be overcome by everything, he is an idiot in the purest sense of the word, unconsciously dedicated to risk, mistakes and scenic imbalance. Artistic research becomes a personal mission, a consubstantial mission.
Director: a visionary human being.
The one who sees, the one who knows from which edge of which precipice to push the actor, making sure that they do not fall into the ravine, at the same time ensuring that they do not remain too safe on their feet.
The director is equally open to influences, or rather influenced by suggestions, indications. The director is also the bearer of investigation, theoretical reflection and critical analysis. He carries out research in conceptual elaborates where they experiment with hypotheses. The director places demarcation lines on their investigation that form concept grids which they then seek to cross through creation on the stage – the performances are hypotheses for overcoming these limits.
Spectator-participant: another human being
The creative act is carried out in partnership with the spectator-participant. If a thing happens, it happens only within the relationship that exists between human beings. Anything can happen but only through mutual consent and respect.
Company: a group of human beings.
Over time the company has developed a strong nomadic ethic – it discovered its wanderer identity only after a long time putting down roots in its home region Puglia. Milan, Pescara, Barletta, Fiume, Southend-on-Sea, are the current nodes of TB’s geography, marked on open maps which transcend countries, regions and languages.
To wander: to travel, to make mistakes
Nomadism is a necessity and a plan: it resonates and thrives off theatre practice.
The actor and the director position themselves to concentrate on meeting the unexpected in search of mistakes. A process that develops by a sequence of experiments through actions either verified or falsified, through mistakes that reveal and produce new mistakes. The attempts never end. Process is Product
Irony: a necessary, essential, undeniable socratic condition
Irony is a feature of directing: the director, working with the actors, uses a maieutic method where irony is a socratic tool.
Irony is also a characteristic of acting: the actor acts with a constant and disenchanted gaze on themself.
Sospensione: condition of the soul where one begins to decide then withdraws
In the act of creation, suspension before carrying out an act is in TB’s nature. We proceed with doubts, retrace our steps, always staying suspended between a starting point and infinite points of arrival. We carry our own creature in the artistic womb with the hesitation of a first-time mother.
The creature is artistic creation.
Word: a human tool of communication.
Words are doomed to failure, they are inadequate. Nonetheless, the actor allows the word moments of meaning and perhaps of emotion. The actor makes the word their main instrument, but it is not they who use the word but it is the word that fills them.
Reality: starting point, material of creation, territory of action.
Classics: tragedy or comedy, they are contemporary paradigms.
Without abandoning the investigation of humanity by comparing themes and eras, the actor and director work to create a whole new Frankenstein: the modern person shaped by the legacy of the past, characters who take on new questions, new anxieties and new passions. No longer Medea, but a Romanian sex worker, no longer Heracles but a forgotten man.
TB is a company led by artistic directors Elena Cotugno and Gianpiero Alighiero Borgia.
