THE ABSENT ONE
by Paola Berselli & Stefano Pasquini
from "La Douleur" by Marguerite Duras
with the work of Paola Berselli, Maurizio Ferraresi,
Gregorio Fiorentini,
Stefano Pasquini, Claudio Ponzana
TEATRO DELLE ARIETTE - 2005
We suddenly realized we have been working on this for a long time.
At least since our “PRIMA DI PASOLINI evento naturale” (“BEFORE PASOLINI, a natural event”), that was built on the absence of the authors and theatre. No more filling, no more making, but taking away, seraching for the bones of the world, inside and beneath, the light of things.
So, today we are working on materials found in 1997, Marguerite Duras’ "La Douleur" that was unconsciously suggested by our friend Gino Venturi and by the chain of absence caused by his deportation to concentration camps from 1943 to 1945. In a letter, he wrote to his wife “if you could see me, you will not recognize me”.
| In that period, my husband and I were working on re-writing Antigone in World War Two.
In a bookshop, I saw a collection of short stories, Marguerite Duras’ “La Douleur”. I was impressed by that title, the picture on the cover and the years it was written. I bought the book. I read it in few hours and cried. I read it again and I felt that sorrow, I felt such a grief for that love. I thought about my husband, about abandon and sacrifice. I felt full of anger, for me, for the man, for the story. And I read it through again Paola Berselli |