The theatre of the second weekend of the Festival dei Due Mondi is entirely dedicated to Anton Chekhov, with the third stage of the journey undertaken in the last three years by the director Leonardo People. After The Seagull e Uncle Vanjafrom 4 to 7 July at the Teatro Caio Melisso Spazio Carla Fendi will be on stage The cherry orchard, last stage of the Trilogy dedicated to Chekhov, presented in its entirety on Sunday 7 July in a theatre marathon. Leonardo Lidi returns to Spoleto after receiving the 2024 Flaiano Award for best direction with the show Uncle Vanjastaged at the Festival dei Due Mondi in 2023.
The cherry orchard is produced by the Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria in co-production with the Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale and the Festival dei Due Mondi. The same actors that the audience has come to know in the first two chapters of the trilogy take to the stage (in alphabetical order): Giordano Agrusta, Maurizio Cardillo, Alfonso De Vreese, Ilaria Falini, Christian La Rosa, Francesca Mazza, Angela Malfitano, Orietta Notari, Mario Pirrello, Tino Rossi, Massimiliano Speziani, Giuliana Vigogna
From the director’s notes: “What a great Chekhov! How beautiful The Cherry Orchard! That cannot be pigeonholed, that cannot be done in any way except the most difficult, that requires a radical belief in the creative act. The call to nobility of spirit, to generosity as the greatest form of art. A place, a garden/theater, that had found its use a hundred years ago and that now lives only in the memory of its interpreters. That now no longer produces the jam that our grandparents were so fond of and that for this reason can easily be torn down in favor of a parking lot.
“This theatre should be torn down,” thundered the master of The Seagull. Here we are again. (…) This is the last image that Chekhov leaves us at the end of Garden, at the end of a life spent for the theatre. A person who has served other people all his life, without ifs or buts, forgotten. He says to himself, or to the theatre he is occupying “…You have no more strength, you have nothing left, nothing… Eh, good for nothing…”. Then a tragic violin string fills the scene. Even Chekhov, after all this good jam given, leaves us on a sad note, as if he no longer wanted to laugh. And in fact we have to cry. Or, perhaps, react”. Leonardo Lidi
The theatre marathon, on stage on July 7th, sees the three stages of the Chekhov Project in succession: at 11 am The Seagullat 3pm Uncle Vanja and at 7pm The cherry orchard.
As the director explains: “A trilogy with the same Company to underline the importance and talent of Italian actresses and actors, classified in political thoughts in the relegation zone but a true gem of Italian theater”. – continues Lidi – “The only common denominator required to tackle the Russian author: sincerity of soul. Being crystal clear in the desire to deliver three extraordinary texts to the public through the strength of the whole and therefore being able to grasp the love that Chekhov dedicated to the figure of the actor in his writing dynamics”.
