Tragic comedy inspired by Gogol's novel
*Entrance to the performance is free.
The Overcoats is a story based on the novel of the same name by the Russian writer Gogol. Akakj Akakjevich is a tiny cog in a huge bureaucratic machine oppressed by the entire social class at the end of the 19th century in Petersburg. The artistic research begins within the pages of a Russian novel, and the result is a play dedicated to bureaucracy, the intention of which is to tell how the little man feels in the face of insurmountable effort and to understand why human beings must continue to accumulate so many laws that they eventually become paralyzed. This is exactly what happens on stage, a progressive and tragic paralysis that turns into a comedy, a "teatro dell'assurdo" spectacle.
The method of artistic research is based on the figure of the clown and the fool, as well as on the circus techniques of researching detailed movements. In fact, it is the movement that drives the action on stage, and not the story of the character, as is usually the case with a written text.
The play is silent, there is no theatrical dramaturgy, the tragedy starts from the actions that take place and which become an ever greater absurdity in which the subject on the stage finds itself. There is no intelligible end; this is not the goal of the art project. Criticism of the bureaucratic system is not explicit; it is rather a research within the system in order to understand all its absurdities and to convey those emotions that we barely analyze when we find ourselves alone in front of the counter, in front of the clerk who starts listing countless laws, pages to be signed ..., "implying that, in order to..." and then he sends you to another clerk on another floor, to another counter where his colleague starts the exact same litany once again.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Davide Perissutti has been studying theater and comedy since 2003. He attended the "Civica Accademia di Arte Drammatica Nico Pepe". He met, studied and performed with several professors of Lecoq's methods, such as: Pierre Byland, Philippe Gaulier, Giovanni Fusetti and Yevgeni Mayorga. He attended the "Hope Music School" in Frascati and the "Accademia del Comico" in Rome. In addition to the above, he has a master's degree in philosophy with a focus on theater aesthetics. In 2010, he founded the organization "Circo all'in Circa". He works as a director of circus shows, festival organizer and educator.