Je crois que dehors c’est le printemps • Gaia Saitta Giorgio Barberio Corsetti • Théâtre National

“They’re playing with friends, I will take them to school tomorrow morning. You’ll go get and them. It was January 30, 2011. I never saw them again.”

Of Italian origin, married, Irina lives in Switzerland. One day, the father of her six-year-old twin daughters decides to take them away. A few days later, the lifeless body of the father is found – he committed suicide – but the girls are missing.

Gaia Saitta and Giorgio Corsetti take hold of this news item – out of which the Italian journalist Concita de Gregorio has created a poignant book – less to retell it than to look beyond it, to capture the breath of resistance, the dazzling poetry of the one who remains.

In a human approach, Gaia Saitta, alone on stage, invites spectators to accompany her, to take on a discreet role on the set, thus giving substance to the story, to Irina’s emotions. Whether they are questioned and/or filmed live, they underline the modesty of the actor’s interpretation and, beyond that, the power of Irina. Powerful with an attention to life. Powerful with a right to happiness that she must reclaim. Because there is the essence of humanity, Irina’s almost “scandalous” beauty: accepting to be touched by love again.

Gaia Saitta is an associate artist at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles.

Création Studio Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Coproduction Les Halles de Schaerbeek

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Presentation pack · je crois que dehors c'est le printemps · 2022-2023 · en PDF 2.2 MB

Theatrical adaptation

Adapting this story in all its veracity to the theatre is not easy. Transposing the emotions of Irina Lucidi and the people involved on stage is even less so.

That’s why, in this theatrical adaptation, Gaia Saitta decides to break with classic theatrical conventions by inviting the public to play an almost silent role, to become the bearers of the fragments of the protagonist's life.

In this show, Gaia Saitta doesn’t claim to tell the true story of Irina Lucidi, but wishes to retrace her journey, her everyday struggle, by inviting us to question ourselves on this life experience at the limit of the paradox of existence. She thus deepens in a subtle and delicate way the theme of the relationship to the other which is already at the heart of this modern tragedy.

Direction

Two screens, one rectangular placed on the ground, the other square suspended three metres off the ground.

A video system that feeds two cameras.

The first, on a tripod, is worked by the actor. The second, hidden in a trolley under a transparent stage, films the actor’s actions from a low angle.

The actor chooses nine audience members ready to accompany her in reconstructing the story. She distributes the roles and invites them to share the stage with her. The people do not have to physically resemble the image that one might have of each character. She installs them each on a chair, in the place provided for the role they are going to interpret. As the show progresses, the participants are questioned and filmed.

The images collected in this way (busts, hands, faces, etc.) are combined with other pre-recorded images, signs, words, until a sort of intimate cartography of the central character is drawn.

In this way Irina's fantasies, nightmares and dreams appear. Thanks to the video, the images are projected onto the two screens, which become windows opening onto the inner world of the protagonist.

The storytelling is non-linear. She moves through time, as if there was neither before nor after, but a here and now.

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Theatrical adaptation

Direction

Touring

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Cast

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