"Since from when I saw the London premiere, almost 50 years ago, I have wanted to stage The Return to home. It is perhaps Pinter's darkest work, dealing with the deep dangers inherent in human relationships and especially the precarious relationship between the sexes. The jungle in which he fights is, of course, the family. Formal, more or less stable behaviors turn into fatal aggression and sexual violence when one of the brothers with his new wife returns from America. All male sexual obsessions in this snake family are projected onto the only woman present. In the men's fantasies, and in their behavior, she is transformed into a whore and is left with no other option but revenge, taking on that role and satisfying their lust more than expected.

As always in Pinter's endings everything remains open. The final image shows the imposing woman with the whimpering, yearning men at her feet, and no one on stage or in the audience will know what may happen.

It is a work exclusively for actors. The initiative for this staging came from the cast members of The Demons who were used to close interaction work. We hope, therefore, with our work we can live up toopera"

Peter Stein

In 1965 a very young Peter Stein attended the world premiere to London of Harold Pinter's The Return to home. The play had been staged from Peter Hall.

A few months later Stein was collaborating to Munich, and more specifically with the prestigious Kammerspiele, as assistant and dramaturg, on the production of the German premiere of the same text.

In these five decades that separate us from that extraordinary London event, the world has changed. But Stein is certainly not one of the characters who have been carried away by the raging river of changes dictated by History without reacting; on the contrary, he has tried all his life to influence them and, in the world of theater, to correct them, often succeeding in imposing his own measure.

With the worldwide consecration of his two Schaubuehne (the first theater the one located to Halleschen Ufer, where Stein landed in 1970 with his extraordinary actors, and the one built for him to Lehniner Platz according to his wishes and opened in 1980, and still regarded as the most modern theater in the world), from then, we said, the dialogical balances of the Berlin Theater changed radically, not only because the East Berlin Theater was in a certain way influenced by it, but especially because it was from that moment that West Berlin became the de facto cultural capital of federal Germany, taking away the primacy to cities such as Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt that had had the inspiration for it until to that moment.

In 1985 Stein seems to sense together with the end of a cycle that lasted 15 years also the change in political arrangements and leaves the theater he founded, provoking to endless discussion. And he begins to traveling, staging to Vienna, Zurich, Paris, London, Moscow, Hanover (the grandiose Faust Project), to Italy, even returning to Berlin, more specifically to the Berliner Ensemble. From 1991 to 1997 he was superintendent of the theater department of the Salzburger Festspiele.

Peter Stein lives from about twenty years in Umbria, to San Pancrazio, and we are convinced that Italian theater has only sporadically been able to take advantage of this prestigious presence.

Teatro Metastasio Stabile della Toscana and Spoleto's Festival dei 2Mondi are delighted to have joined forces to make themselves to available to Peter Stein, his magnificent actors and collaborators to produce and realize this Pinter's The Return to home .

A lifelong matured dream.

George Ferrara

Artistic Director Festival dei Due Mondi Spoleto

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HAROLD PINTER

An English playwright and writer (London 1930 - 2008) among the most complex and original of his generation, Pinter trained as an actor and then made his debut as a playwright. His plays are based on psychological situations that have as their themes the coexistence in the same person of violence and sensitivity, the fallible nature of memory, and the mystery of the female soul; themes that return insistently in many of his works, in which the plot is sometimes almost absent and the unfolding is entrusted to dialogue, with which he knows how to create intense atmospheres. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. An author of radio plays and television scripts, Pinter has also worked extensively as a film screenwriter.

PETER STEIN

Peter Stein is one of the most prominent theater and opera directors in Europe. He achieved success with the Münchner Kammerspiele and established himself in the 1970s as artistic director of the Schabühne am Lehninerplatz in Berlin.

Born to Berlin in 1937, having completed his studies, he was a student of F. Körtner and made his debut in 1967 staging Saved by E. Bond. He is also notable with his memorable staging of Goethe's Torquato Tasso, of which he offers a strongly ideologized reading. For the Schaubühne am Halleschen in West Berlin, of which he has been director since 1970, he produced some of his most successful plays in terms of quality of directorial invention: Brecht's Die Mütter, from Gorkij; Ibsen's Peer Gynt; Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg ; Shakespeare's As You Like It . After his version of Aeschylus'sOresteia and exciting editions of Chekhov's Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, he left the Schaubühne and in 1992 was appointed director of the theater section of the Salzburg Festival, a position he held until 1997. In Italy he directed Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Zio Vanja Chekhov's. He is also active in theater d'opera. Among his most recent productions: the complete Faust by J. W. Goethe; Il gabbiano by to. Čechov; W. Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida; Sophocles' Electra; Tchaikovsky's Mazepa, Eugene Onegin, Checkers of Spades for the lyon Opera House; Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle at La Scala in Milan and to Vienna. I Demoni, based on Dostoevsky's novel, is staged in workshop form and in February 2010 won the Ubu Prize as "performance of the year."

During his 40-year career, Peter Stein has been awarded numerous international honors, including being named Commandeur de L'Ordre del Artes et Lettres et Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur of France. He has also received honorary degrees from the universities of Edinburgh, Valenciennes, Salisbirgo, Rome and Jena. He has been decorated with the Order of Merit of Germany and the Honorary Medal of the City of Salzburg.

FERDINAND WÖGERBAUER

After studying at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, he was first assistant set designer then head of the set design department at the Salzburg Festival until 2003. He has staged performances in the world's most prestigious theaters. He has collaborated regularly with Peter Stein: Zio Vanja to Rome, Moscow, Parma and Edinburgh, Der Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind at the Salzburg Festival, Die Ähnlichen to Vienna and Edinburgh, Tatyana at Teatro alla Scala Milan, Faust I in Hannover, Berlin and Vienna, Pancomedia to Berlin and Venice, Il gabbiano to Edinburgh and Riga, Medea to Syracuse and Epidaurus, Don Giovanni at the Lyric Opera Chicago and Los Angeles Opera, Blackbird to Edinburgh and London, Mazepa to Lyon and Edinburgh, Troilus and Cressida to Edinburgh and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Eugene Onegin, Pique Dame to Lyon, Lulu at Opéra National de Lyon, La Scala Milan and to Vienna, Schiller's Wallenstein and Der zerbrochene Krug at the Berliner Ensemble.

ANNA MARIA HEINREICH

After studies to Vienna, where she was born, and in France, in 1976 she settled in Italy where she began to working in costume design collaborating with Lele Luzzati, and Santuzza Cali. Her activity has alternated between prose theater, opera opera, film and television in Europe,and the USA collaborating with artists such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Peter Stein, Chris Kraus, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Fiona Shaw, Cillian Murphy, Maddalena Crippa, Maurizio Balò. He has participated to several editions of the Salzburger Festpiele, signing costumes for the 75th Jedermann edition, among others. She took part for French TV to Marie Curie and La vie de Chateaubriand, for Italian television in the short films, Esercizi di stile, directed by Mario Monicelli, and for RAI Sat, to Captain Cosmo, for cinema films she worked in La Donna della Luna, Lettera from Paris, Viol@. He has taught classes for the training of costume designers in specialized schools and academies such as La Scala Academy.

ROBERTO INNOCENTI

Born to Prato in 1954, in 1972 he began his work as a tour theater technician with the Gruppo della Rocca. In 1976 he returned to Prato where he participated in Ronconi's Workshop in such shows as Life is a Dream by Calderòn de La Barca, The Tower by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Bacchae by Euripides. He then worked as a technician at Teatro Metastasio, specializing in lighting design. Since 1989 as a light designer he signs the lights for about eighty shows produced by the Metastasio theater and beyond and collaborates with directors such as Carlo Lizzani, Federico Tiezzi, Massimo Castri, Pier'alli, Stefano Massini, Paolo Magelli, Marco Baliani and many others. Since 2011, he has also taken over the technical and production direction of the Teatro Metastasio Stabile della Toscana.

PAUL GRAZIOSI

He attended the acting course at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia with Andrea Camilleri and Orazio Costa Giovangigli in the early 1960s. His first major role is Mercuzio in Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zeffirelli. He is Ruzante in L'Anconitana and Bilora directed by Gianfranco De Bosio. Participates with leading role from in Marco Bellocchio's film La Cina è vicina. Works to long with Carlo Cecchi participating in the founding of Granteatro. Among several works directed from Cecchi, The Birthday and The Return to home by H. Pinter. At Teatro Argentina he is Shakespeare's Coriolano directed by Franco Enriquez and Il Cavaliere di Ripafratta in La locandiera. He is Dionysus to Syracuse in The Bacchae directed from Walter Pagliaro and with the same to Turin he is Apemanthus in Timon of Athens. He is Jason in Mario Missiroli's Medea . With Peter Stein he begins to working in the 1990s in Titus Andronicus. He is the Father in Sei Personaggi directed by C. Cecchi, Filippo in Trilogia della villeggiatura directed by Toni Servillo, Giove in Leopardi's Le Operette Morali directed by Mario Martone. He recently worked in Ricette per unioni felici...o quasi un mix Cechov-Campanile directed by Patrick Rossi Gastaldi. He has also tried his hand at directing with S. Beckett's Primo Amore, E. Ionesco's La Lezione, T. Bernhard's Il teatrante and "...Il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare", a recital to two voices of Leopardi's Canti, assisted from Massimo Puliani. He took part to several television broadcasts.

ALEXANDER AVERONE

Born in 1978, from Piedmont, he graduated to Rome from the National Academy of Dramatic Art "Silvio d'Amico" in 1999. He is part of the Nuova Compagnia dei Giovani of the Teatro Eliseo in Rome under the direction of Scaparro(Romeo and Juliet), Carniti(Sleeping Around), and Patroni Griffi(Metti, una sera to cena). He opened the Globe Teather in Rome as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet directed from Gigi Proietti. After an experience with the Stabile di Brescia under the direction of C. Lievi(Fotografia di una stanza) he joined to the Ensemble of Teatro Due di Parma for which he worked from five years as performer, directed from Le Moli, Dall'Aglio, Però, Cavosi, Muscato, Farau, and as director(Così è, se vi pare / La visita della vecchia signora). In cinema he was directed from F. Carpi(Le intermittenze del cuore), to. Negri(Riprendimi), C. Maselli(Le ombre rosse), T. Rossellini(Interno giorno), R. Andò(Viva la libertà). With Il ritorno to casa he returns to to work with Peter Stein after the Dostoevskian experience of I Demoni.

ELIA SCHILTON

He graduated from the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan with Ernesto Calindri and made his debut in 1978 with Webster's La Duchessa di Amalfi , directed by Mario Missiroli, followed by from Verso Damasco by Strindberg and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. He collaborates to several times with Carlo Cecchi, who directs him in Molière's The Misanthrope and George Dandin, in the Shakespearean Trilogy(Hamlet, A Summer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure), in Chekhov's The Wedding , in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and in T. Bernhard's Claus Peymann buys a pair of pants.... His journey through the classics had already seen him with G. De Bosio in Molière's TheMiser, with Beppe Navello in Ibsen's Spectres, and with Mario Morini in Strindberg's Creditors . Luca Ronconi directed him a first time in Schnitzler's Professor Bernhardi. This will be followed by F. Crivelli in A Straw Hat of Florence by Labiche, T. Conte in Ubu Roi by Jarry and The Persians by Aeschylus, W. Le Moli in Antigone by Sophocles, Italo Spinelli in Republic by Plato. On the occasion of "Turin 2006," he again directed from Luca Ronconi in E. Bond's War Dramas, G. Ruffolo's The Devil's Mirror and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. For film, he starred in films by Brusati, Fago, Bondì, Papetti, and Sorrentino. For television, he has acted in films by Giraldi and Sironi, among others. In radio, he has lent his voice for Radiodue and Radiotre. During the most recent seasons, he starred in Molière's Tartuffe directed by Carlo Cecchi. He was first directed from Peter Stein in Dostoevsky's The Demons . He starred for the direction of Damiano Michieletto, in B. Martinu'sopera The Greek Passion.

ANDREA NICOLINI

An actor and composer, he recently took part in to End of the rainbow by Quilter directed by J.D. Puerta Lopez with Monica Guerritore and to Pillowman by MacDonaugh directed by Carlo Sciaccaluga. He starred in Dostoyevsky's I Demoni directed by Peter Stein, a play that won the Ubu Prize in 2009, Lisma's L' Operazione and Questa sera si recita to soggetto by F. Ceriani. In the numerous shows in which he has taken part he has been directed from Gabriele Lavia, J.D.Puerta Lopez, K. Zanussi, to. Arias, G. Bosetti, F. Branciaroli, G. De Bosio, N. Garella, S. Maifredi, L. Giberti. He has long collaborated with the Stabile di Genova directed from M. Sciaccaluga, J. Ferrini, V. Binasco, M. Mesciulam, to.M. Messeri. He took part to recitals paired with E. Evtuscenko, Lou Reed, M. Ondachi, M. Darwuish. He composes (since 1985) the stage music for G. Lavia, M. Sciaccaluga, Kristof Zanussi, Benno Besson, Mathias Langhof, V. Binasco, J.Ferrini, N. Garella, to.L. Messeri, F. Branciaroli, G. Piazza and many others.

ROSARIO LISMA

Winner of the Hystrio Award to the vocation for young actors 1999. Pupil of Massimo Castri at the E.R.T. Advanced Theatre Training Course.

He worked to extensively for Nuova Scena with N. Garella, for the Teatro della Tosse in Genoa with T. Conte and S. Maifredi, and then again with G. Lavia, to. Calenda, G. Albertazzi and M. Castri. With the latter in 2008 he played Mr. Ponza in Così è (se vi pare) by Pirandello. With to. Nicolini and "Ludus in Fabula" he staged Don Quixote and Les Diablogues. In 2007 he also debuted as an author in Che gusti ci sono. In 2009 he won the Nuove Sensibilità Award at the Napoli Teatro Festival with L'Operazione, of which he is author and director as well as performer. He plays Satov in Dostoyevskji's The Demons directed by Peter Stein. In 2012 he is Cal in Lotta di negro e cani by Koltès, directed by R. Martinelli.

ARIANNA WAGERS

Born in 1973 and a 1996 graduate of the "Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art" in Milan, Arianna Scommegna won the Lina Volonghi '96 Prize, the 2010 Critic's Prize and the 2011 Hystrio Prize. Since 1996 she has been a founding member of the ATIR company, with which she has acted in numerous shows directed from Serena Sinigaglia. In theater she has also been directed from Gigi Dall'Aglio, Gabriele Vacis, Veronica Cruciani. In cinema she played the role of the mother in Scialla! directed by Francesco Bruni (Winner of Controcampo Italiano at the 2011 Venice Film Festival) and a young actress in the film Il dolce rumore della vita by Giuseppe Bertolucci. She is also involved as an actress and trainer in the project "The Spaces of Theater."

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