Woyzeck (1973)
by Georg Büchner
directed by Carlo Cecchi e Italo Spinelli
set and costumes by Sergio Tramonti
music by Gianni Guaraldi e Toni Bertorelli
with Dario Cantarelli, Carlo Cecchi, Paolo Graziosi, Gianni Guaraldi, Gigio Morra, Fabienne Pasquet, Daniela Piacentini, Italo Spinelli
Debut Torino, Lingotto, November 1973
Every man is an abyss, if you look inside you feel dizzy
by Valentina Valentini, in «Studi germanici», n. 13, 2014
Carlo Cecchi has staged Woyzeck a number of times: in 1969, first at the Teatro Gobetti and then at the Cultural Union, and then again in 1973 at the Lingotto, also in Turin. What the director finds fascinating in Woyzeck is, on the one side, its formal construction – the fact that the work is built in tableaux, without patterns of cause and effect; on the other, its political aspect – the fact that Woyzeck is the first poor man in the history of the theatre that took on the dignity of the tragic hero: the poor man who drops his canonical role to become a character defined by his social being. ‘We wanted an opportunity to confront a great performance text, let’s say a tragedy […] we wanted to try the interpretation of a classic text today.’
The choice of Woyzeck as a literary text is also informed by its quality as unfinished. It is a classic and tragic theatre, but different: ‘the fact that it isn’t finished makes it continuously available to new inventions. It’s particularly interesting in its fragmented form, which generates […] a continuous need for an immediate and clear relationship between actions, gestures and the spoken word.’
Following this thinking, the title of the show is Rehearsal of Woyzeck by Büchner: a kind of programmatic statement by the Gran Teatro theatre company that expressed the group’s urgency to get away both from the idea of the ‘product’ – and as such to stage something that looked like an open rehearsal – and from the architectural space of the Italian theatre, allowing the theatre to invade the space of the spectator and for roles to become flexible, a desire which was common to many in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Documents are published in original language. In case the translation is present, both the original and the translation are published.
Study by Sergio Tramonti, 1974
«[…] cercavo informazioni su come questo testo era stato realizzato in Italia nel dopoguerra, e mi colpì leggere della messinscena di Cecchi, di un Woyzeck duro e dialettale: in scena c'era anche Sergio Tramonti, che poi seppi essere un romagnolo purosangue, a Roma da diverso tempo, a cercare fortuna e gloria tra cinema e teatro. [...] Poi seppi che Tramonti si andava affermando come uno dei migliori scenografi del nostro teatro.» - Marco Martinelli, intervento in Woyzeck, Wozzeck, Spuren, Ravenna, Essegi, 1994
«Nel 1968 ho letto e rappresentato, per la prima volta, il Woyzeck di Georg Büchner. La compagnia, che Elsa Morante chiamò il Granteatro, era diretta da Carlo Cecchi. Fabbricai le maschere della Scimmia e del Cavallo, curai le luci e la scena e, come attore, recitai nel ruolo di Andres. Per mesi ho usato, durante le prove, il mio dialetto: il romagnoIo di Piangipane di Ravenna, e forse, lo capisco solo ora, fu questa una delle ragioni del mio innamoramento per quel testo e per il Granteatro. [...]» - Sergio Tramonti, Woyzeck, Wozzeck, Spuren, Ravenna, Essegi, 1994
Carlo Cecchi, Lo spazio tragico (nota sul Woyzeck), Note registiche sulle prime versioni (Torino, 1969), «Teatro», n. 1, 1970 pp. 116-122
Guido Boursier e Carlo Cecchi, "Woyzeck" secondo il Gran Teatro. Un confronto sul piano dell'oggettività, Intervista a Carlo Cecchi, «Sipario», n. 276, April 1969
Masks by Sergio Tramonti, 1974
Modern Art 1987 (on the occasion of contemporary exhibitions at the gallery A.A.M. Architettura Arte Moderna and Teatro Due di Roma, curated by Francesco Moschini, 11 May-7 June 1987)
"Woyzeck" 1974
Alberto Blandi, Un tormentato spettacolo dal «Woyzeck» di Büchner, «La Stampa», 28 February 1969
Alberto Blandi, Rinasce nel sotterraneo il «Woyzeck» con Graziosi, «La Stampa», 30 March 1969
Alberto Blandi, Carlo Cecchi e il suo Granteatro. Woyzeck itinerante, «La Stampa», 11 December 1973
Aggeo Savioli, «Woyzeck» proletario in una zona popolare della capitale, «L'Unità», 10 March 1974
Franco Quadri, Teatro - Woyzeck, «Panorama», 14 March 1974
Giuseppe Bartolucci, Crudeltà e candore del «Woyzeck», in Giuseppe Bartolucci, La politica del nuovo, Ellegi Edizioni, Rome, 1973
Franco Quadri, Neo-espressionismo uno e due. "Woyzeck" di Georg Büchner, «Sipario», n. 275, March 1969
Woyzeck and Maria
studies in Sergio Tramonti, Woyzeck, Wozzeck, Spuren , Essegi ", Ravenna, 1974
«[...] unlike Hamlet, Electra, Oedipus, Antigone, Don Giovanni and other mythical heroes of theatrical literature, Woyzeck and Maria were known characters, almost familiar, that still bring me back to the world of my origins: of the Crusò, of the Bel Cuntadé (dialectal nicknames of the families of my grandparents) and other characters, poor people, peasants, laborers, men and women of my country that I found on feast days on the dance floors of the "Sala Mazzini" or "Teatro Socjale" . It is there that I saw, as a child, my first Marie and my first Tamburmaggiori »-.
