.webp){kind=logo}
FRANCO BRANCIAROLI
Rachid Benzine, a French Islamologist and philosopher of Moroccan origin, is one of the leading exponents of that new generation of intellectuals dedicated to the study of the Koran from the perspective of dialogue with other Western cultures and religions. A sociologist by training, in his late nineties, in his early twenties, he initiated a profound conversation on Islam and Christianity with the priest Christian Delorme, from which gave rise to the successful book_ Abbiamo tante cose from dirci_ (1998, transl. it. 2000). In the years that followed, he deepened his philosophical interests, studying theopera of Paul Ricoer, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida and drawing inspiration from them to return to the reading of the Koran. It is on the wave of these studies that some of Benzine´s most incisive works take shape, such as _The Qur´an Explained to Young People _(2013, transl. it. 2016)
Letters to Nour is an epistolary drama between a father - a practicing Muslim intellectual who looks to the West and observes his religion as a message of peace and love - and a daughter, Nour, who has left for Iraq to reunite with to a hardline Muslim with whom she has fallen in love. 'Paradoxically' moved by the same principles of love and tolerance inherited from her father, and thus not out of fanaticism, the daughter ends up joining the jihadist cause and to paying the harsh price.
"I am working from months on a nagging question," says Rachid Benzine to about Letters to Nour, "a question that always bounces back like a migraine, recurring and familiar. Why do young men and women, born in my own country, from my own culture, decide to leave for a country at war and kill in the name of a God who is also my own? This violent question took on a new dimension on the evening of November 13, 2015: a part of me had just attacked another part of me, sowing death and pain. How to live with this torment? In response, to little to little, an epistolary dialogue was born between a father-philosopher and his daughter, who left for jihad... This dialogue is impossible, difficult, I imagined."
A text that, in its dramatic essentiality of pure dialogue, moves with extraordinary effectiveness between chronicle and ideology: looking at current events, it touches the deep wounds of our contemporary society to the core, to starting from the power of a private affair, of family affections distorted by history.
Maintaining a universal scope, Letters to Nour offers a novel portrait for us of Islamic culture in its complex confrontation with Western culture.
Starring from an exceptional actor like Franco Branciaroli, whose long journey has often crossed the complex horizons of religious reflection, Lettere to Nour is directed by young Giorgio Sangati, a director who came from Luca Ronconi's school and who is quickly coming to the attention of audiences and critics alike. Alongside to Branciaroli on stage is Marina Occhionero, a young and promising actress, from recently graduated from the Silvio d'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art.
Nour is in her twenties when she decides to leave, to suddenly leave her life as a bright student to reach Iraq and marry a fighter of the emerging Islamic State she met on the Internet. Her father, is a university professor, an enlightened and progressive Islamic theologian who lost his wife when he was young, raised his daughter from a widower and now finds himself alone.
Nour has a desire to change the world, to take action, to put into action all that he has studied and learned from his father, to to whom he holds it against him that he has closed himself up in an idiotic ivory tower made of books and certainties, with no more relationship with reality.
The father would just like his daughter to return to home, safe, to realize the horror, the paradox of a worldview based on violence and hatred.
from on the one hand, life that continually measures itself with risk, with horror, with death; on the other hand, reason that theorizes dialogue and peace, but claims to all costs to eliminate violence and remove pain.
Evolution and stasis, drift and blockage, youth and old age, rebellion and pride. Two antithetical looks at reality, two views on Islam investigated without prejudice.
Two years of correspondence, two years of confrontation and love, to recount an intense and troubled relationship, a family, generational and cultural conflict seemingly with no way out.
A dramatic epistolary, a dialogue to distance, in which the very concepts of intimacy and distance lose consistency and words often hide others, because it is difficult to really talk to each other, to really listen and to really see when such a deep, archetypal bond as that between a father and a daughter is at stake.
On stage, in an ideal inner non-place, in a sort of soul space -contemporaneously nightmare, paradise and trap- the meeting between one of the greatest performers ever, Franco Branciaroli and a young and promising actress, Marina Occhionero. Together to them, camouflaged on the stage, a trio of musicians, the Mothra, to build an impalpable, suspended soundscape, to halfway between East and West, between future and past, music as present, as blood, as life.
Rachid Benzine, to himself an intellectual and Islamist, and a staunch advocate of a critical and open reading of the Quran, from has long fought to untether studies on religion from political instrumentalization of any kind and feed research with tools from the humanities and social sciences.
In Letters to Nour goes straight to the core of the question: why do very young girls and boys decide to leave their countries to participate in the Islamic State's insane war? What are they looking for? What has been missed? Avoiding simplifications and bravely staying within the perimeter of Islam, he constructs a kind of clone of himself: Nour´s father, older than the author, thus becomes a possible projection of him. Benzine theatrically doubles himself and imagines himself to conversing with a generation of children who cannot to understand the meaning of his thinking. He questions the possible motivations behind this "rupture," questions himself, and observes himself without discounting.
It is not, however, intended to provide answers, rather to suggest questions, to offer insights: perhaps the removal of emotion (and death) and the excess of rationality can make even the most open viewpoint sterile.
It is necessary to remain always listening, in touch with the world (everything) and not to close in on oneself, in one´s pride. It would be fatal at this time to give up dialogue with the other, especially when the other espouses a cause out of frustration, suffering the manipulation of unscrupulous profiteers. The suggestion between the lines is from not little in a world that tends to to systematically divide, in every sphere, good (us) and bad (others). Of course, there are monsters, from one side and the other, and it is good to recognize them, but only by creating bridges will it be possible to re-establish relations within the one big family of men; divisions, walls are useless to nothing: because - as Nour´s father says - the destiny of a wall is its collapse.
Letters to Nour is a story so personal, so private from become public, universal: there is something classic about this contemporary writing that brings Lear and American Pastoral together. A text that affects us all: we are all children or parents or both, we are all in this same present and being to watching by now may not be enough.
George Sangati
by Rachid Benzine
Italian translation to edited by Anna Bonalume
directed by Giorgio Sangati
with Franco Branciaroli, Marina Occhionero
and with the trio Mothra
**Fabio Mina **flute, alto flute, duduk, electronics
Marco Zanotti prepared drums, percussion, electronics
Peppe Frana electric oud, godin multioud, electronics
assistant director Virginia Landi
scenes Alberto Nonnato
lights Vincenzo Bonaffini
original music by trio Mothra
costumes Gianluca Sbicca
production Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Centro Teatrale Bresciano, Teatro de Gli Incamminati
in collaboration with Ravenna Festival
_Nato a Milano nel 1947, viene riconosciuto da giovanissimo come uno dei maggiori talenti del teatro italiano. Si è diplomato alla Civica Scuola del “Piccolo Teatro di Milano” e proprio al Piccolo ha debuttato nell’estate 1970 in La battaglia di Lobowitz di Peter Hacks, con la regia di Guy Rétoré. Nello stesso palcoscenico ha fatto la sua prima vera apparizione diretto da Patrice Céreau in Toller di Tankred Dorst. Dopo aver incontrato Aldo Trionfo al Teatro Stabile dell’Aquila in Arden of Faversham, dal ‘72 al ‘76 lavora con lui allo Stabile di Torino, interpretando Peer Gynt di Ibsen, Ettore Fieramosca di Massimo d’Azeglio, Nerone è morto di Miklos Hubay, con Wanda Osiris – il suo lancio come protagonista -, Gesù di Theodor Dreyer in prima mondiale, Bel Amì e il suo doppio di Luciano Codignola e Faust – Marlowe – Burlesque, pastiche di Trionfo e Salveti, in coppia con Carmelo Bene, scambiandosi nel corso della serata i ruoli di Faust e Mefistofele. Con Carmelo Bene è anche Romeo in Romeo e Giulietta ed è Calaf nella Turandot di Virginio Puecher da Gozzi, con Valentina Cortese. Partecipa quindi al Laboratorio di Prato diretto da Luca Ronconi, dove incarna Sigismondo ne La Torre di Hoffmansthal e interpreta nel 1979 L’uccellino azzurro di Maeterlinck. Lavora con Scaparro (Il revisore di Gogol, Teatro Popolare di Roma) e con Squarzina (Oreste di Euripide, a Siracusa e Caligola di Camus per la RAI TV). Dirige Pugacev di Esenin. Mette in scena Synge (Il furfantello dell’Ovest), La vita è sogno di Calderon de la Barca, Peer Gynt e Spettri di Ibsen. Interpreta come protagonista Confiteor e In exitu di Giovanni Testori guidato dall’autore. Oltre che in televisione, ha lavorato al cinema con: Michelangelo Antonioni (Il mistero di Oberwald tratto da L’aquila a due teste di Cocteau), Mikos Jancso (Vizi privati e pubbliche virtù) e Tinto Brass (La chiave, Miranda, Così fan tutte, L’ uomo che guarda). Con la regia di Ronconi nel 1990 lavora in Besucher di Botho Strauss e in Féerie – Pantomima per un’altra volta di Celine. Nella stagione ’90/’91 interpreta il doppio ruolo di Tonino e Zanetto ne I due gemelli veneziani di Carlo Goldoni per la regia di Gianfranco de Bosio. Nel frattempo continua il sodalizio con Giovanni Testori del quale interpreta Verbò, Sfaust, SdisOrè. Nella stagione ’91/’92, diretto da Marco Sciaccaluga è Cirano in Cirano di Bergerac di Edmond Rostand, Roberto Zucco in Roberto Zucco di Koltes, Petruccio ne La bisbetica domata di William Shakespeare, in coppia con Mariangela Melato. Nel 1993 realizza la regia di tre spettacoli: Re Lear di W. Shakespeare per l’Estate Teatrale Veronese (interpretando anche il ruolo del protagonista), L’Ispettore generale di Gogol a quattro mani con Marco Sciaccaluga (interpretando anche la parte del Sindaco), I due gemelli veneziani di Carlo Goldoni per la Compagnia del Teatro dell’Arca di Forlì. Continua l’impegno shakespeariano con il Teatro Romano di Verona interpretando Macbeth per la regia di Giancarlo Sepe, cui farà seguito nel 1995 l’allestimento de La Dodicesima Notte di cui è anche regista. L’interpretazione dei grandi capolavori shakespeariani prosegue con la messinscena di Otello per la regia di Gabriele Lavia con Umberto Orsini nel ruolo di Jago. Nel 1996 interpreta Medea di Euripide per la regia di Luca Ronconi, che, in un allestimento originalissimo in cui Branciaroli interpreta la parte della stessa Medea, viene presentato per oltre 200 repliche nei maggiori teatri italiani. Lo spettacolo sarà riproposto poi, riallestito da Daniele salvo, nel 2017. Tra gli altri spettacoli, nel 2000 affronta La vita è sogno di Luca Ronconi e con lui partecipa al progetto Greci al Teatro di Siracusa dove è Prometeo nel Prometeo incatenato. Nella stagione 2000/’01 Branciaroli è Edipo re di Sofocle per la regia di Lamberto Puggelli. La stagione 2001/’02 lo vede impegnato ne La Moscheta di Angelo Beolco detto il Ruzante con la regia di Claudio Longhi, da cui si fa dirigere anche nel 2002/’03 nel testo di Albert Camus, Caligola, nel 2003-2004 nella Peste di Albert Camus, nel 2004 – 2005 in Lo zio ( scritto da Branciaroli stesso). Nel 2006 è Hamm in Finale di partita di Beckett, scene di Margherita Palli, in un’edizione che avrà grandi riscontri di pubblico e critica. Nella stagione 2006/2007 2007/2008 è Galileo in Vita di Galileo di B. Brecht per la regia di Antonio Calenda. Ha partecipato al film I Vicere di Roberto Faenza, con Alessandro Preziosi e Lando Buzzanca, e Bianco e nero, per la regia di Cristina Comencini. Nell’estate 2008 interpreta Re Claudio in Amleto di Shakespeare, insieme a Alessandro Preziosi e Silvio Orlando. Nel 2009-2010-2011 è protagonista di un’originale one man show da Don Chisciotte di Cervantes in cui dà le voci di Vittorio Gassman e Carmelo Bene ai due protagonisti. Da luglio 2010 è consulente artistico del Centro Teatrale Bresciano. E nella stagione teatrale 2011-2012, è impegnato nei panni di Sir ne Il Servo di Scena di Ronald Harwood, uno spettacolo che inaugura la collaborazione tra il Centro Teatrale Bresciano e il Teatro de Gli Incamminati. Una riflessione sul mondo teatrale che continua nella stagione 2012-2013, con l’interpretazione del frustrato e megalomane Bruscon, ovvero Il Teatrante di Thomas Bernhard. Di entrambe le pièce cura anche la regia. Nel 2014 debutta Enrico IV, suo primo lavoro pirandelliano e il suo ultimo testo, Dipartita finale, che vede in scena Gianrico Tedeschi, Ugo Pagliai, Massimo Popolizio e Branciaroli stesso. Nel 2015 dirige ed interpreta Macbeth di William Shakespeare e, infine, nel 2017 la suddetta Medea, un riallestimento con cui festeggia i suoi 70 anni e gli oltre 40 di carriera. _
He trained as an actor at the Piccolo Teatro School in Milan, where, under Luca Ronconi, he graduated in 2005, and graduated from the University of Padua in Scenze della Comunicazione, with a thesis on La tragedia nel cinema di Pier Paolo Pasolini. Giorgio Sangati, despite his young age (he was born in 1981), has already gained extensive stage experience both as a performer, playwright and director. From 2007 to 2015 he starred in the Piccolo Teatro di Milano´s Harlequin servant of two masters, for Giorgio Strehler´s historic version, taking part in the meantime to several shows by Luca Ronconi and in the successful edition of Arturo Ui´s Resistibile ascesa directed from Claudio Longhi (ERT Fondazione-Teatro di Roma, 2011 ANCT Award as "best show of the year"). In the same period he was also an actor in cinema, where he worked with Marco Tullio Giordana (Sangue Pazzo), Renato De Maria (La prima linea), Michele Placido (Vallanzasca), Carlo Mazzacurati (La sedia della felicità). Gradually moving towards directing and dramaturgy, he studied with masters of the international scene such as Lev Dodin, Anatolij Vassiliev, Yoshi Oyda, Anne Bogart, Declan Donnelan, and then became assistant director to Luca Ronconi from 2011 until Lehmann Trilogy. In the same year he began to directing shows himself, both written from him and starting from other dramaturgies. Among the numerous productions that, in a short time, he has staged, are from mention his text Massacritica (2013, Teatro Stabile del Veneto), Harlequin servant of two masters from Carlo Goldoni (2015, Teatro Stabile del Veneto), Carlo Goldoni's Le donne gelose (2016, Piccolo Teatro di Milano), the melodramatic interludes Rosiccia e Morano by Francesco Feo (2017, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto), Mahagonny Songspiel from Brecht/Weill (2017, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto) and, in the last season, the successful I due gentiluomini di Verona by William Shakespeare (CTB-Teatro Stabile del Veneto).
He was born in Asti in 1993. After graduating from Liceo Classico Alfieri, he moved to Rome to study acting. She carries out her studies at the Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio D´Amico and the Conservatoire d´Art Dramatique in Paris, obtaining the Academy´s diploma to October 2016. She immediately began to working in theater directed from Oscar de Summa in the shows Riccardo III and La Cerimonia, then in the revival of Luca Ronconi´s In Cerca d´autore at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan and with Cristina Comencini in her new show Tempi Nuovi. Her first experience with the camera was with Fuori sede, a short film directed from Sergio Rubini; soon after she made her debut in the film L´età imperfetta by Ulisse Lendaro in the leading role and was in the cast of the film La ragazza nella nebbia by Donato Carrisi alongside Toni Servillo, Alessio Boni and Jean Reno. She recently participated in the films Il primo Re by Matteo Rovere, In viaggio con Adele by Alessandro Capitani, and Palloncini by Laura Chiossone, all to be released in 2018.