On Wednesday I gave a short lecture about my Pirandello project at the British School at Rome during which I described the 1921 premier of Pirandello’s ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ at the Teatro Valle. I showed an extract of a recorded staging of the play in 1964 that took place on the same theatre, a majestic early eighteenth century theatre that has also premiered Mozart, Rossini, and many other important cultural works. I got very good feedback from those present and it’s gratifying to see that an Italian audience also view my project with enthusiasm. Afterwards I was told that Teatro Valle is currently under occupation with actors, lighting engineers keeping the building open 24 hours day. At 11pm we went straight away to visit the theatre and saw that rehearsals and plays can happen at any time as an alternative model is created about how to run a cultural organization, a society. We met some of those involved, which has gathered attention throughout Italy and is characterized as Italy’s own Velvet Revolution supported by international filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, composers Ennio Morricone and others. Certainly it was an honour to speak with people involved and a delight to see their passion, dedication and respect for the Teatro Valle, their determination to propose an alternative way to fund arts projects and to resist creeping privatization. I was invited onto the stage and so at last I got to stand on the same spot where Pirandello’s characters’ first appeared ninety years ago. Finally! Of course I am arranging to go back: they don’t know it yet but I am going to film there. Serendipity is on my side.
