the room

by harold pinter

played and directed by Teatrino Giullare
scenes and masks Cikuska
Production Teatrino Giullare and CSS- Teatro Stabile di Innovazione del Friuli Venezia Giulia

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false. Harold Pinter

Overshadowed by an ominous presence, human experiences of loneliness, insecurity and danger – with comical and disturbing aspects – unfold behind the window of an urban building. Harold Pinter’s first play, written in 1957, The Room is a prototype text of many  of the themes dominating the playwright’s best work.
Inside their flat in a drab apartment building, a housebound woman and her taciturn husband feel their home is mysteriously threatened by an enigmatic presence, by suspicious and disturbing characters waging psychological warfare. The atmosphere in the room becomes heavy, charged with uncertainty, anxiety, violence. In a delicate balance between reality and pretence, truth and falsehood, two actors play six different roles. They express the characters’ ambiguity by wearing hyper-realistic masks that change shape and astonish the audience in a whirl of appearances that
magnify the play’s mystery and modernity.
 

After its work on Beckett and Bernhard, which won great public acclaim and numerous awards (Premio Nazionale della Critica (National Critics’ Award); Premio Speciale Ubu (Ubu Special Award); Jury Prize, Mess International Theatre Festival of Sarajevo), Teatrino Giullare takes a look at everyday life through a tragicomic work about feelings of safety and menace, about people’s fear when they retreat inside their home to protect themselves from other people and from the shadow of the stranger.
 

A fascinating show. Magda Poli, Corriere della Sera

A layering of elements that produces a really striking effect, able to maximize the elusive language of Pinter.
Renato Palazzi, Delteatro.it

Unmissable and very stimulating. Marco Brandolin, Messaggero Veneto

Excellent proof that masterfully enhances the density of contradictions, tensions and allusions through a refined staging. Alberto Rochira , Il Piccolo

The two performers, true to their poetic and use of objects in an original theater, driving on a strange ability to make all "oversize" through the use of beautiful scary masks  that hide their faces and create subtle distortions in the sensory of spectator. Andrea Porcheddu Delteatro.it

Charming. Masolino D'Amico, La Stampa

A universe earthquake to tell us the daily violence of monstrous beings, made real by gestures paradoxically abstract, estranged from a recitation that leaves its mark. Maria Grazia Gregori, Delteatro.it

With great fidelity to the text of the two performers make it a kind of Grimm's fairy tale, cruel, sure, but correctly padded and readable by many different perspectives. Gianfranco Capitta, Il Manifesto