Active since 2005, lacasadargilla brings together author and director Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli, sound designer and documentary maker Alessandro Ferroni, actress and project coordinator Alice Palazzi and Maddalena Parise, a researcher and visual artist. Together with them, a collective of actors, musicians, playwrights, and visual artists; an extended ensemble who work together on shows, installations, concerts, revues and training activities. They are supported by national and international institutions.
Among their original works are: La Casa d’Argilla (The Clay House 2006), a tale of five women seated around a table in mourning that turns into a magical vigil; Il Libro della Domande (The Book of Questions 2007), based on a true story of hysteria and public shaming at Paris’ Hospital Salpetrière; Foto di Gruppo in un Interno (Interior Group Photo from 2009), talking about a 1930s family from Trieste, Judaism, collusion with fascism and dark games at tea time. Among their works based on theatrical texts and novels are Ascesa e rovina della città di Mahagonny (The Rise and Ruin of the city of Mahagonny) by Berthold Brecht (2008-09); Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser (2011-12); Katzelmacher a film written & directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (2009) and Edward Bond’s Lear (2015-17).
Their special projects include: Art You Lost? 1000 people for a work of art (2012-14), an innovative installation-performance around the theme of loss created in collaboration with Muta Imago, Santasangre and Matteo Angius. IF / Invasioni (dal) Futuro (Invasions (from the) Future (2014-16; 2017-19), a one-off revue composed of stories, images and sounds from the world of science fiction. A theatrical-multimedia project entitled Les Adieux which debuted in 2017. Parole Salvate dalle Fiamme (Words Saved from the Flames (2017) and June 2018’s Game written by Pinter Commission recipient Brad Birch premiered at the Ta ’Qali Stadium in Malta.
The ensemble’s latest work is based around Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling (2019). This is a kind of ‘genealogical’ journey through memory, inheritance and abandonment, that takes us to the threshold of a torrential flood. Bovell’s play originally won three UBU awards – for Best Direction, Best Costumes and Best Foreign Text as well as a National Association of Theatre Critics award for Best Direction and the Le Maschere award for Best Emerging Actress.
Emiliano Masala was born in Milan where he graduated from the Faculty of Humanities at the city’s Statale University. He then took a degree at the Teatro Stabile school of acting in Turin. In 2006 he was among a group of actors participating in the Projet Thierry Salmon / Ecole des Maîtres alongside Antonio Latella. He won the 2008 UBU AWARD for Best Young Actor and that same year Masala co-directed and acted in the show “Brugole”, which won ETI’s New Sensibilities award.
Over the years he went on to direct the shows Fuorigioco by Lisa Nur Sultan, Being a Liar by Carlo Guasconi and Six characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello.
He has worked with several theatre directors including Carmelo Rifici, Sonia Antinori, Renato Gabbiano, Antonio Latella, Valerio Binasco, Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli / Lacasadargilla, Tindaro Granata, Mauro Avogadro, Paola Rota, Andrea Chiodi, Luca Ronconi, Walter Le Moli and Marco Plini.
For Panorama Roma this year they work on Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson‘s I mangiatori di patate (Kartöfluæturnar), opening the doors of theyr creative yard to the public.
Kartöfluæturnar
Lísa is a war nurse and renowned for her work in the Yugoslav wars and her attribution to the feminist movement. We meet Lísa as her estranged daughter, Brúna, a busdriver, asks her to babysit for the first time. As Lísa is trying to connect with her peculiar grandson, she hears a knock on the door. Outside Mikael, her former step-son and lover, is standing and in desperate need of help.
A dramedy about the selfishness of suffering, codependency and how trauma travels within the family and isn’t stopped until it is seen.
–Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson was born in 1987 and grew up in the small town of Kópavogur Iceland. He finished a BA in performance making at The Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2011. He was an exchange student at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in The Czech Republic and then went on to study Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson’s first play Grande was his graduation piece from the Art Academy, earned him recognition in Reykjavík and a nomination to Gríman, the Icelandic Theatre Award. Two years later Blue Eyes (Bláskjár) premiered at the Reykjavík City Theatre where Tyrfingur was made resident playwright. There he wrote The Commercial of the Year.
His latest play Kartöfluæturnar received five-star reviews, critic Jakob S. Jónsson naming Tyrfingur as one of Iceland’s preeminent playwrights. Kartöfluæturnar is set to be premiered in The Netherlands with Marcus Azzini directing his theatre group Toneelgroep Oostpool. Blue Eyes was given a staged reading at the Avignon festival in July 2018 during a European forum dedicated to contemporary writings organised by the Avignon Festival, the Strasbourg National Theatre, The Nanterre University and de Maison Antoine Vitez.
Tyrfingur has received six Gríma nominations and won the award once. His plays have been published in books and translated into English, French, Dutch and German. He has written for Glamour Magazine Iceland and taught at both The Iceland Academy of the Arts and the University of Iceland. In the fall of 2018 Kartöfluæturnar was nominated for the Cultural Awards (Menningarverðlaun DV). Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson lives in Amsterdam.
