Review of the show Autonomous Dignity of Prostitution on stage at the Bellini Theater, directed by Luciano Melchionna
Who goes to the theater to attend Autonomous Dignity of Prostitution he already knows that he will meet something unconventional, exceptional, uncommon, and he goes with the spirit of those who expect everything. And instead, this show goes beyond any hypothesis and prediction, and when you return home you still find yourself thinking and reflecting on everything you have just seen.
And we come to this conclusion: the show Autonomous Dignity of Prostitution it can not be included in any commonly recognized category and is, without any doubt, the theatrical novelty of the decade, but also of the twenty years, to the point of marking the starting point of a new way of doing and conceiving the art of theater.
For five years this show has been around the theaters of Italy, recently performing abroad (in Spain), and the surprising thing is that it is not a Broadway musical, and not even the most prominent actor's show. of the moment. AND' pure theatermoving away from and breaking away from the classical conventions of the theater as we know it, paradoxically it returns to its origins, and likes because theater by its nature likes people, so much so that it was once considered an almost primary need of man.
The theater where the DAdP show is held becomes a real brothel, complete with red lights at the entrance, and in the foyer you are already beginning to savor the atmosphere and the extravagant dimension that will accompany the spectator / client for the duration of the performance. The maitresses of the house, the tenants of the other actors / prostitutes, begin to perform, to entertain the public who learns early to play the game and to "play" the part of the client looking for his "theatrical pleasure".
Reached a large number of people you enter the hall / house closed, set up as if it were an arena (the armchairs have been completely disassembled from the floor and left to "furnish" the stalls in a disorderly way) and one soon realizes that all the boxes in the theater are "studded" with actors who are completing their preparation. There are those who wear make-up, those who are about to get dressed, those who comb their hair, those who still feel the part of him.
After a few minutes the room fills up, and the show can begin. Four maitresses they are on stage and present to the public the "prostitutes" of the evening, actors but also singers, mimes, jugglers, dancers, performers, whose "performance" can be purchased. Everything is wisely managed and coordinated by the "popes" Luciano Melchionna, the eclectic and brilliant director of the show and author of some of the texts represented. Among short shows, comic interludes, danced pieces and music that overwhelm the room to the point where everyone can stand up to dance, the negotiations start. Each spectator, or group of spectators, will be able to choose the actor from whom he will receive his "pleasure pill", obviously negotiating with the tenants and paying in dollarini (the local currency withdrawn at the box office).
Each actor will bring his spectators / clients to a designated place, secret alcoves hidden in the infinite tunnels of the theater, making the show also an itinerant itinerary that the public takes with pleasure and curiosity. In a bare and cramped dressing room, in a machine room, in a cloakroom, in an office in the foyer, even in the toilets or in a parked car, the actor / prostitute on duty will perform in 15-minute monologues, unpublished texts or already known, establishing an intimate relationship with their small audience, recovering the profound meaning of theater: an encounter between men, an exchange of emotions, the transmission of sensations.
The goal of the "pleasure pills" is to make people think and have fun and to restore
"An amazement again solicited by a theater that is not self-celebratory, hermetic or an end in itself but above all magic and dream"
After having tasted their "pills" of theatrical pleasure, all the spectators find themselves in the hall for the gran finale where actors and spectators, now familiar, mingle and mingle, and then again attend musical performances and recitals by the 20 actors of the company that end with an engaging musical "break" on the notes of New York New York in which the spectators also participate, intoxicated with enthusiasm.
But DAdP is also social provocation anti-crisis, as explained in a prologue sung and punctuated by the actors themselves. In an era in which the value of things is perceived only if they have a price, even art and culture can adapt to this regime to gain, but above all to be revalued by people.
Here the actors sell their talents and their trade as they do in the world, but maintaining an honesty and one "Dignity of prostitution" because it is the right of everyone, including artists, to earn for what we know how to do. Moralisms aside, the public is there, and pays because it appreciates the value of what is being offered, as it does with bread. And you want to go back to see the show, for all the next nights, because you have the certainty that you will be satisfied by other "pleasures" theatrical, all different from those of the previous days.
Culture and art are priced, is a concept that must go well in everyone's head. Because it is from culture and art that we can start again, just as it is from anguish and the economic crisis, as much as the existential one, which rekindles creativity and inventiveness, the solutions to fight it and get out of it, without ever resigning. Luciano Melchionna docet.
