class="">Roberto Bacci: “If the show is impossible, we’ll do it!”

Roberto Bacci, artistic director and founder of the Fondazione Pontedera Teatro of Italy, says that theatrical research and directing are the two legs he walks upon. He’s more interested in questions than answers and he doesn’t want to become a show-making machine. Before climbing onboard the plane bound for home, he told us of the ways to work with a playwrights and about the NTF shows he enjoyed.

An interview by Adina Scorțescu

Roberto Bacci is a self-taught director, who learned from the people he worked with, among whom are Jerzy Grotowsky and Eugenio Barba, two of the most important contemporary directors. Two years ago, he staged Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the National Theatre in Cluj and, this year, Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard”

You’ve already staged two shows in Cluj. What will be the next one?

I think it will be “Don Juan” by Moliere, because I never did comedy before.

Never?

No. I’m a cheerful guy, but I like tragedy. So, in Cluj, I can afford to do comedy, because there are extraordinary actors there, it’s a superb theatre and a very present audience. I even did Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” in its entirety: two hours and 50 minutes- the longest show of my life. To me, Cluj is a gymnastics hall. Because, in Italy, I work very differently, with a small group of actors and with more time to prepare the shows. While, in Cluj, everything is so…(he snaps his fingers) fast.

And isn’t it better to have more time to prepare?

Yes, it’s much better, but having little time is a good exercise. A mental exercise, a challenge. For me, any show is a different experience to the last. Otherwise, we’d learn nothing of ourselves. It’s not important to make show after show; you become a show-making machine. The most important thing, for me, is to build the necessity to make a show.

How do you do that?

There are questions one poses to oneself, questions that have to do with one’s own life and which can find their meaning in theatre.

For instance?

The show that’s being played in Italy, at Pontedetera, right now is called “In the Light”. It has to do with emotion. “What is emotion?” That, to me, is an important question. It took me a year to prepare the script, alongside the playwright, to understand how we are the ones who produce emotion (especially negative emotion which we don’t even notice) and how to have the conscience of how we function.

That would be theatre, right? To see how we are made, as people, as human machines. It’s the only thing we can do. Then, to transform our essence into something different…that’s a life’s achievement. But, it’s not for everyone.

You staged “Cherry Orchard” in Cluj. Why did you choose this text?

The first time I did the “Orchard” was 40 years ago; it was a synthesis, the essence, and it lasted for one hour. The play has universal themes, but- at the same time- very personal ones, that have to do with transformation. How do you react to transformation? To the passing of time, the changing of your body and what we consider to be our property- family, garden. Time is made of so many things! Of the influences of society, those of our consciousness, the influences who come from god knows where- sometimes from religion, politics or from a maestro; sometimes an incident on the street. How do we react to all of these?

When Chekhov talks about the Orchard, in reality, this is what he talks about. It’s one of the reasons for which I do theatre work, why I think we all should. Otherwise, we’d just make shows- beautiful or ugly. It’s not very interesting.

If you were to choose just one introductory title, would it be “theatre director” or “researcher”? What are you, primarily?

I am a self-taught director, I never graduated from any theatre school. I did “theatrical studies”, I taught at the University, but I learned directing through practice. I’ve had masters, I worked for five nights with Eugenio Barba and a few years with Grotowski.

Just five nights?!

Yes, only five. The idea is to understand one’s principles. After that, while you work, you discover all their intricacies. The principles are few: then comes practice and the work itself. It’s as if you’d invent formulas to convey the basis of mathematics. It then becomes something else, something unexplainable. The directors work is craftsmanship. Each time, he looks for the materials and the spaces, various ways of expression. To me, that’s essential. I have no method. With any show, I look for the environment in which I won’t copy what I did so far. Otherwise, I get bored.

So, research and directing are the two legs I walk upon. One won’t work without the other.

I can’t do the research if I haven’t the awareness of the craft. And I can’t do the craft if I don’t have the meaning of research, of the thing I’m looking for.

How many shows do you make, in a year?

There are years when I only make one. There are also desperate years, when I make three, as is the case this year.

Two in Italy and one in Cluj?

Yes. That’s too many… I say that because, every time, I really must look for the need to make the show. It’s the rarest and most difficult thing. To find the starting point. Sometimes, I begin with a title which doesn’t exist in literature or theatre. For instance, for me, one of the most beautiful shows of mine has been “Heaven on Earth”, for which I had no text to back it. Or I start from the great novels: “Oblomov”, “Magic Mountain”, “The Idiot”. I very rarely start from the theatrical texts.

Do you always work with the same playwright?

No. I worked with Ferdinando Taviani for many years, who is an important historian of theatre and a playwright and the Odin Theatre. We created a rule: each year, each show must be a completely different collaboration than the last. For instance, one year, he would come see the rehearsals once a month or I would write to him about what we were doing, and he- without seeing anything- would reply. He’d write ten pages, he’d improvise.

How is that possible?

It is. The only problem is opening the right channels and finding a logic, credible to the audience. But, as a wise man said…”To get to the point you don’t know, you must pass through what you know not”.That’s an essential rule.

Then, I worked for many years with a playwright, with whom I still work- Stefano Geraci. He’s the one with whom I’ve done “Cherry Orchard”. Even if most of the text is Chekhov, with small variation, when you work it a playwright like Stefano, who is a very intelligent man, you get the whole range of information on the text, the author and so on.

This gives you a sort of mental disturbance, which you don’t use, but it’s important to have it. All the little details, you can later forget, but it’s good they exist in the beginning.

For this year’s show, “In the light”, I worked with a young playwright, who would listed for a long time. Another important thing to me, that there be people who listen. I was at a bar and I said, “look, Michele, I’ll do this show if it’s impossible. If it’s impossible, we’ll do it! And, especially, if –in doing this show- we also learn something; if we get out of it knowing important things we didn’t know before.”

In the bar there were some people playing cards. I told Michele: “Let’s imagine there are four blind men playing cards. What’s the stake? Their sight. “That’s what we started from and we worked for a year. We got a very nice script about negative emotions, about light, about what it means to see and be seen. About what it means to have someone else’s eyes.

I am currently in your eyes. What does that mean to me, right now? If I didn’t see you, I’d be more free. Now, you’re taking my time. These days, I’m busy with this festival. Soon, I’ll be busy with a plane… (he smiles)

Are you working at a show after the premier?

In cluj, it’s impossible. But , in Italy, I’m there for every showing. And I keep working. I am waiting on two-three lines to get consolidated, after which there are more details to polish.

How do you chose who you work with?

I don’t look for actors, but people. There are people who I’ve worked with for a long time, with whom I’ve developed a sort of privacy. In front of them, I can show my doubts, my weaknesses, I can look for anwers. We can improvise, we can wander about aimlessly.

You build the show slowly and then you see it. In fact,you don’t truly see it. Because you’re still identifying with your work. And then the audiences arrive. They allow you to see your work, from a different standpoint. I don’t mean intellectually. If you sit there, among them, you automatically see a different show.

What show, precisely?

It’s a sort of energy…and the viewpoint is no longer your own, it becomes a shared one. There you can keep working on the play. It’s as if you were a viewer seeing it for the first time. And that’s very difficult. It’s as if you were always searching for your first identity.

A show must be made for the first time or for the last time. Things don’t work in-between. Same with the actors. Stefano, with whom I’ve worked in Cluj, told the actors: “Abandon the show. Now’s the last time you’ll play it” And that creates the need to be present. It’s as if you’d see your lover for the last time. And then, it’s as if you were seeing him for the first time. Because, there is the nostalgia of the first time. Isn’t there?

What are the shows you enjoyed in the NTF?

I’ve see four shows: “Tartuffe”, “Oedipus”, “Tot Family” and “Typographic capital letters”. Of these four, even though I don’t like socially-themed shows, I appreciated the latter. It was the most simple and the most well-made; the most honest.I didn’t care for the show, maybe because I’m not Romanian, I never lived under the Securitate, Ceausescu and so on. But, were he to talk of Italian partisans I still wouldn’t have cared. Because this makes you believe you’re a good man, that you’re right. And I don’t believe in being good nor right. Let’s see! Let’s discuss! I come back to what I was saying in the beginning: the basic idea is to know yourself, not to judge the others.

For me, theatre is another type of instrument. There are things which can be done through books, newspapers, documentaries. But theatre is a different sort of presence and, as such, I think it has much more to offer.

Photo: Lucian Muntean