© Zani-Casadio
Fanny & Alexander
I sommersi e i salvati
from the project Se questo è Levi
direction Luigi De Angelis
drammaturgy Chiara Lagani
with Andrea Argentieri
production E/Fanny & Alexander
Ubu 2019 special award to Fanny & Alexander for the project “Se questo è Levi”
Ubu 2019 award to Andrea Argentieri as best actor or performer under 35
Meet Primo Levi face-to-face, listen to his stories from a Nazi death camp, see through his clear gaze, which can speak the unspeakable from the apparently peaceful perimeter of reason. Andrea Argentieri will lend his voice and gestures to Levi, assuming his postures and delivering his speeches, drawing from the massive archives of the national public broadcaster RAI, and from extended interviews. Through the technique of ‘remote acting’, which Fanny & Alexander have perfected in the last ten years, they show Primo Levi on the verge of an enormous question: is this testimony still burning and relevant today? Can it still talk to us through the living body of an actor who lets himself be guided by the original materials? Can the epiphany of a voice or a soul, leaving its sensitive imprint on the soft, pliable matter of an actor’s body, revive the power and the necessary relevance of testimony?
A group of spectators will interview Primo Levi in a sort of ‘question time’ where the writer’s answers will retrace the moments of his imprisonment and his complex relationships with the Germans, always with a peaceful attitude, incapable of hatred.
We will be called to reflect on the deep meaning of being part of a community, and on the values of community, compassion and historical responsibility as “antidotes” to horror.
