Loosely based on “Oscar and the Lady in Pink” by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Performance winner of Tagad’Off 2015 – Festival of New Dramaturgy in Lombardy organised by Residenza Teatrale Ilinxarium
A suspended space, a place inundated with letters, and a couple of characters: maybe postmen, keepers of dreams and dilemmas of the colour of ink.
Their job is to sort and send all those envelopes, in a way that is always methodical and the same; but here comes one, unlike the others, with no stamp and unaddressed. On the back, just a simple blue line in pencil made by a child: “From Mario to God.”
Curiosity makes us want to open the letter, but this creates a fracture: the truth cannot be said. Mario is dying. Mario is a child. And writes to God to speak of his own end, to ask innocent yet disarming questions about his near future: what colour is death? What perfume does it have? What music do you hear in death? Questions that take us by surprise.
All the two postmen can do is reply, even if in the surreal dimension that is created: how can you pretend, in fact, to be God? And then … who is really God?
The result is an exchange of letters, a subtle dialogue that is a path of development for everyone, which will try to get to the finish line without depriving life of life. The path, slowly but surely, will become a game for Mario and the two postmen: narrating life, imagining living seven days as if each day lasted ten years. Joys, defeats, loves, sorrows both small and large: the mosaic of an existence perhaps not extraordinary, but certainly unique, as is every life in this world.
Through imagination and storytelling, it is possible to be filled with a sense of time, to free ourselves from it and have our fill of life, even in a short time.
In a letter, the symbol of a small great struggle: a hymn to life, to hope, to the courage of every day.
A performance that always manages to get a smile and to tackle profound issues and important considerations with lightness.
OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION
Recommended age: 9+
Techniques used: acting
Running time: approx. 1 hr
Minimum stage size: 6 X 7 m
Total load current: 16 KV
Set-up time: approx. 3 hrs
Dismantling time: approx. 1 hr