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 Production ATTIS Theatre Company
EREMOS
Author: Carlo Michelstaedter
Director: Theodoros Terzopoulos
Scenic composition: Paolo Musio, Theodoros Terzopoulos
Installation: Yannis Kounellis
MONODRAMA FOR PAOLO MUSIO
In the middle of the scene stands the actor Paolo Musio, his body is transforming into a multi-rhythmic machine, confronted with the elementary natural powers, like gravity. Within him lie two diametrically opposite powers, which however complete each other and are being interpreted as crystallization of the rational element at one side and of the instinct and impulses at the other. The conflict of these two powers, which is also prominent with many different ways in ancient greek tragedy, could be also considered as the struggle of a weary body at the threshold of death, with its last yet so powerful expressions of its vital energy. In his eyes sparkles an unsearchable distance; his mind is lost in a realm, from where rise elusive images, fragments from stories, violent profanities, expressions of a desperate and clear voice, in the attempt to create the labyrinth into which is being lost, in an intense adventure of the thought.
 The space constructed by Yannis Kounellis, with deep roots in ancient Greek tragedy, provides with a unique way, the common ground for the performance. The collaboration with Yannis Kounellis is a great pleasure and honor and it leads us directly to the core of things. Consistent with this attempt of the ontological interpretation of the text is the participation of the chorus of lyric singers, who interpret fragments of hero’s madness, through the classic music tradition.
Theodoros Terzopoulos
The anguish for death, for earth’s desolation, for nature’s devastation, is being “written” on the body, the stylized movement and the vocalization of the eminent Italian actor, Paolo Musio. Ioanna Kleftogianni Eleftherotypia, 14/11/07
Delicate nuances, interpretation through the body, voices of hope and desperation, existential dead-ends enhance a universal and diachronic performance Dimitris Foinitsis, Eleftheros Typos, 2/12/07
It is a tragic dialogue for the end of violence, the descent of human to Hades. Paolo is trembling; Terzopoulos is enhancing his fear and preparing him for what follows, through ancient texts, while the tenori are performing shaking vocals. Maria Maragkou, Eleftherotypia, 17/11/08
Through Terzopoulos’ interpreting method, Paolo Musio is in constant dialogue with the philosophical text, using as vehicle his energy body. […]. Staying still and motionless, with his eyes wide shut, he articulates words conveying visions and moving from desperation to an internal explosion. Dimitris Tsatsoulis, Theater der Zeit, December 2007
Carlo Michelstaedter was born on 1887, in Goritsia, Italy, by Italian-Jewish parents. Immediately after his graduation from the high school of Goritsia, he subscribed in the Mathematician Department of Vienna. However, very soon he abandoned it and he moved to Florence with the prospect to study painting. Instead of that, he attended the Philosophical department and was devoted to poetry and ancient Greek philosophy. On 1909 he returned back to Goritsia to prepare his diploma essay. On October 16th of 1910 Carlo Michelstaedter had completed his critic essay on “Persuasione”. The next day he committed suicide. By ADELPHI publishing have been published the texts by Carlo Michelstaedter “Letters” (1983), “Poems” (1987), “Dialogue about health” (1988). His text “La Persuasione and Rettorica” was published on 1995.
The texts that Carlo Michelstaedter had gathered for his diploma, with the title "La persuasione e la rettorica", constitute a heterogeneous aggregation, of which the intense poetic dimension lies upon a hopeless voice. The dramaturgy of the “Michelstaedter scheme” is based upon those texts that distinguish because of the hearing of that internal voice, following one of the most probable routes that goes through the poetic of Carlo Michelstaedter. Michelstaedter, who was born in Goritsia and committed suicide on 1910, at the age of 23, was gifted with an insight drifted in the European culture and, at the same time, rooted in the classic thought.
The nature of Michelstaedter’s thought, with deep routes both in west and east, on 19th century and classic times, is the common ground for the collaboration for the Italian actor Paolo Musio with the Greek director Theodoros Terzopoulos.
La Persuasione is, for Carlo Michelstaedter, the effort to obtain the authority upon oneself, something that usually fails because of the imperfection of life. La Rettorica is the device that produces speech, gestures, and institutions involving the difficulty to approach Persuasione.
Michelastaedter walks ahead, without hesitating, into a labyrinth without an exit; his existence stands constantly between life and death and he evokes a quest in a contemporary tragic dimension. This quest lies exactly in the centre of Theodoros Terzopoulos work.
The group of myths that passes through Ades is the key for the comprehension of a ritual theatre of tragic dimension. In this theatre the deligation of the young poet and philosopher loses every dialectical feature, every word parataxis, in order to turn into body, jail, energy, flame, conflict which, with the scenical realization, happens now, in a space of contemporary desolation, where every sense of balance has been lost.
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