Tib Teatro, ''FIRMAmenTO GALILEO''

Belluno (Italy)

The Crossing curtain, that is 14 m wide and 6 m high, is stretched on a Self-supporting sectional frame made like a hemicycle composed by modular centrings.The modularity and the realization of aluminum of the frame allow an easy transport of the structure and the adaptation of the backdrop to stages of differents heights.

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The backdrop / curtain / spyglass of Galileo was manufactured with the fabric LBE - Perolastic and constitutes, with some objects, the whole scenography of the show.

The backdrop is employed as if it were a small ciclorama that uses both the frontal illumination and the illumination from the back.The backlighting sometimes underlines the function of separation of the Crossing curtain, symbolically underlining the distance between Galileo ...

... and his interlocutors.Or it is used for representing the visions of Galileo «... suggested by the lucidity of the mind, even though in the dark of the blindness that accompanies his old age.»Daniela Nicosia, from the notes of the direction.

The four female characters are interpreted by the same actress, that «... proposes herself, through the different characters, like an enigmatic alter ego, sometimes ironic, sometimes sweet and impassioned, of the hot-tempered and vital genius.»

Between the inside and the outside the dialogue is possible at times, even though through a barrier. A barrier that separates several worlds: that of the science and that dogmatic, that masculine and that feminine, that inner and that of the society, and so on.

The barrier among the characters, nevertheless, is not insurmountable.

Favored by the symbolic and scenographical functionalities of the curtain, with a small effort of their will, the four women of Galileo have the possibility - and the privilege - to open some small rip through which they can enter the world of the scientist / philosopher.

It's difficult to find another scenographical case in which a Crossing curtain realized with LBE - Perolastic assumed figurative and symbolic meaning that was so functional to the text as it happens in this mini-installation that creates an essential, rigorous and suggestive stage context.

Galileo's reflections are developed inside a gigantic spyglass, a hemicycle realized with a Crossing curtain that separates the world of Pisa's astronomer from the outside.

A membrane that is permeable to the passage of four women only: the mother of Galileo, Julia Ammannati, his daughter Virginia, known by her monastic order as Sister Maria Celeste, his lover Marina Gamba, i.e. the mother of Virginia and the ruler that it will stay nearby him up to the end.

Text, direction, scenography

Daniela Nicosia

With

Solimano Pontarollo and Piera Ardessi

Musical consultation

Paolo Da Col

Lighting, sound

Paolo Pellicciari

Technical direction

Luigino Marchetti

Construction objects of scene

Luigi Bortot

Costumes' realization

Atelier Raptus & Rose

Production

Tib Teatro in collaboration with Università degli Studi di Padova-Dipartimento di Astronomia and Fondazione Teatri delle Dolomiti

Materials used in this production

9TM - Metal frames

Frames for stagecraft

COS - Oscurante

Duvetyne and blackout fabrics

Crossing curtains

Typology of curtain

LBE - Perolastic

Elastic fabrics

Information on data processing