SNOW-WHITE
Second work of the tetralogy dedicated by Lenz Refractions to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Snow White is the representation of a sacrifice ritual. Above a natural altar of very white feathers, an organic sarcophagus of Phoenician memory, snowed by an equally feathered window, the Blessed Mother and Snow White perform the rites of gynaecean life. The princely dwarf, acting as priest, officiates the natural mass with a virile spirit.
Director's notes by Maria Federica Maestri
And immediately the snow, white and full of sighs, it is stained blood red. And full of love, the mother, at his first heartbeat he dies. How to resist the tragedy that the fairy tale commands? Obeying the primacy of salvation. Lei, of royal beauty is more beautiful, because without mirrors, without worries, without reflections. Beauty that cannot be seen, not suspicious, don't doubt, nor does it waver. Snow White born from chemical-terrestrial enigmas, from climatic puzzles, from celestial genetics, And, before becoming flesh, moral color, ethical-chromatic nature: nera, of wooden rib for impenetrable virginity, ah, that hair of his, dark and hard like precious ebony; rossa, for sanctity of lips and cheeks burning with modesty; bianca, for the cold face snowed by his icy chastity. Prey pardoned by the attempted gamekeeper, that flowering close to pupation grants, Snow White flees into the wooded arabesques, entering the domain of the ancient saga. Hidden in the lair of the divine little men, eternal without decay, body not body, rests lying in the beds of men who are not men, ah those numbered dwarfs, seven kings of the lower measure. She is locked in the monastic kingdom of the minus, receives the gifts for the sacrifice of the time of life, a ribbon that tightens her chest until it takes her breath away, a comb whose teeth secrete poison, an apple soaked in an evil potion. The queen is a meticulous priestess of the immolation ritual, oh creature, of virgin-child nature, if that's how she wants to stay dead forever she must appear. Kept in the glass case, like a sculpted marble statue, in the exhibition it is exhibited for the passage of the princely collector, old lover of rare reliquaries and sentimental necrophilia. The Germanic Pygmalion nourished by ancestor passion, he moves the poisoned morsel without desecrating the body with the kiss. Metamorphoses and wonders of mortal time rediscovered. But a price must be paid for human tragedy: the heroine of the finale is the Bacchante and Maenad queen condemned to dance until her last breath with red-hot iron slippers.
The musical score of Snow White is a progressive sequence of filtered and modulated accordion reverberations, which builds the Queen Stepmother's death tango: in opposition, the tonal and thematic irony of the dwarves and the jazzy refrained melody of a swaying prince respond.
SNOW-WHITE
there Snow White from the Fratelli Grimm
translation | playwriting || Francesco Pititto
regia || Maria Federica Masters
scene | costumes | visual elements || Maria Federica Masters
musica || Adrian Engelbrecht
electronic processing || Andrea Azzali interpreters || Joseph Barigazzi | Sandra Soncini | Barbara Voghera
production || Lenz Refractions
first || Lenz Theatre, Parma, 2001
duration || 60 minutes
The show has been presented in many international festivals including: Nature Gods Theater Festival (2002), Franco-Italian Theater and Dance Meetings in Lille (2002), Il Vascello Theater in Rome (2002), Madrid Alternative Festival (2003), Festival Panorama Escena in Olot (Spain, 2003), Arles and Evry (France, 2003).
