© Zani-Casadio
Menoventi
Buona permanenza al mondo
Majakovskij bpm
based on Il defunto odiava i pettegolezzi by Serena Vitale (© 2015 Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. Milano)
by Gianni Farina
with Consuelo Battiston, Tamara Balducci, Leonardo Bianconi, Federica Garavaglia, Mauro Milone
direction, sound and lighting design Gianni Farina
animations and technical design Lorenzo Camera
graphics Marco Smacchia
organisation and promotion Ilenia Carrone
a co-production E/Menoventi, Ravenna Festival
“Good luck to those who remain.” This is the sardonic close of Vladimir Majakovskij’s suicide note, addressed “to everyone”: the poet shot himself through the heart on April 14, 1930. His acronym, BPM, also stands for ‘beats per minute’, the pulse, the heartbeat of a man who is now reduced to “the appendage of a heart”; it is the rhythm of a poet who is “nothing but heart, roaring everywhere”. Serena Vitale, one of the most important Italian Slavists, has investigated the complex mystery of Majakovsky’s death. Her research has inspired Menoventi to create a dramaturgy on the last heartbeats of the great poet of the Revolution, and of his extraordinary generation of young artists, who embraced the October Revolution and radically transformed the traditional conception of their respective disciplines, then were crushed by the authoritarian drift of their utopia, and often put a violent end to their art or life. Following in the footsteps of Mejerchol’d and Majakovsky, Menoventi narrate their story blending Realism with the fantastic characters generated through the use of metaphor, a procedure the poet often followed. Original materials and documents thus meet the Phosphorescent Woman from Majakovsky’s last play, who will guide the audience in this maze-like, whimsical artistic period, seduced by the myths of reincarnation and time travel.
