Matrioska Suite

Video

Snapshots from the direction of Ferdinando Ceriani

Our personal battle with the weather begins! Three performances, each time with the threat of rain looming. Some of the kids perform propitiatory dances to chase away the clouds. In the meantime, there has been a generational shift (many new students are enrolling, including numerous foreigners from Flanders, Germany, and France). We bring the great Russian theater to the stage. From Gogol to Chekhov, a grand portrait of turn-of-the-century Russia. During the show, a red flag also appears in a scene depicting a popular uprising! A red flag at Luiss! We fear excommunication, but fortunately, the theater smooths out even the most contentious friction! Applause and acclaim!

Adaptation and direction: Ferdinando Ceriani

Assistant director: Carla Ferraro

Assistant director: Alice Guidi

Music: Goran Bregovic, Gogol Bordello, Leningrad, Paul Cantelon, Dvorak, and traditional Russian music

Loosely based on the plays of Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol

May 25-26-27, 2009, at 9:00 PM

LUISS Guido Carli, Giardini dell'Università, Viale Pola, 12 - Rome

Matrioska Suite is a theatrical game where we had fun taking apart, mixing up, and putting back together some of the most famous works by Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol, like countless pieces of an impossible puzzle. Like a matryoshka, the main story unfolds into other micro-stories that transport us into a grotesque, hilarious, and chaotic Russia, where characters and situations alternate to the wild rhythm of some of Eastern Europe’s most famous bands. The result is a surprising human tableau, a faithful reflection of the vices and ills of our modern society. This has allowed the students of the LUISS Guido Carli Theater Workshop to bring to life a whirlwind of characters who, as conceived by the director, evoke the characters of Commedia dell'Arte on the one hand, and the futuristic cabaret and Karl Valentin on the other. And so we encounter the pompous councilor, the crazed policeman, the debauched young man, the corrupt administrator, the ignorant noblewoman, the depressed actress, and many others… and even a Nose! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a Nose! And don't think that this makes the content of our Matryoshka Suite any less true. Because, as Gogol himself says during the show, “Whatever people say, such things do happen in the world; rarely, but they do happen!”

Students | Leading actors

• Raphael Badura
• Flavia Baldinucci
• Eugenia Barone
• Valentina Betrò
• Giacomo Bucciarelli
• Michelania Campagnuolo
• Sara Conallo
• Giovanni Cordì
• Marco Cozzolino Coletta
• Francesca di Giorgio
• Filippo di Iorio
• Giuseppe Di Paola
• Ilaria Diotallevi
• Gianluca Fasano
• Claudia Foglia
• Francesco A. Frigetti
• Luisa Giurato
• Giuseppe Guglielmino
• Cecilie Kenis
• Giuseppe Labate
• Clementine Lance
• Alberto Landi
• Teresa Mattioli
• Leonello Marraccini
• Stefaan Meuwissen
• Claudia Monti
• Maria Murrone
• Antonio Nicastri
• Simone Oddo
• Valerio Pilia
• Lodovica Pirisi
• Antonio Rinaldi
• Daria Rizzotto
• Sara Savini
• Luca Sigot