by Slawomir Mrozek

 

Staging and Director Stefano Alleva

with

Michele Nani Fat Shipwrecked
Francesco Rossini Medium Shipwrecked
Andrea Dezi Thin Shipwrecked
Ewa Spadlo Postman
Rodolfo Mantovani Servant

 

Musicians

Harvey Cultural Association in collaboration with the City of Campello sul Clitunno

Out at Sea is a one-act play written by great Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek in 1961.
The story, set in a dead-end situation, is based on the persecutor/victim relation and represents with admirable and amusing irony an absurd and grotesque aspect of life.
It’s the account of three shipwrecked on a raft: Fat Shipwrecked, Medium Shipwrecked, Thin Shipwrecked. The three characters have to deal with an awful issue - the lack of food. The only way to find food seems to be a necessary atrocity: decide which of the three shall be sacrificed for the survival of the other two.
The writing flows magnificently with sharp and receptive irony, never falling into a farce or, even worse, into vulgarity. In flowing it depicts the chase between realism and surrealism, between concrete and abstract, between poetic and grotesque.
Although the play runs on a subtle and sharp thread, it never becomes intellectual or destined to a limited elitist audience. On the contrary, it always offers a direct approach and the involvement of all type of viewers.
For the 52nd edition of the Festival of the Two Worlds of Spoleto, the play is presented in a suggestive and special staging: on a real floating raft in the marvelous surrounding of the Fountain of Clitunno a Campello, only a few kilometers from the center of Spoleto.
Three musicians are part of the staging and represent the metaphoric extension of the three characters’ souls.