DIRECTOR INTERVIEW

Interview with Teresa Ludovico ‘Eleftherotypia’ Newspaper (Greece) -10/06/06

Is there anything specific, a certain characteristic quality that distinguishes your work in the theatre as a director of children’s plays?

The essential characteristics that could be found in my work are the grotesque, the poetic, and a tendency to play with proportions. Often I search for actors and actresses that are able to perform acrobatics . The Snow Queen has two new acrobats to whom I entrusted the scene of the dream of the prince and princess. Hans Christian Andersen’s story, which I adapted, is set in seven stories, i.e. seven dreams- the passage from childhood to adolescence. Some actors perform acrobatics to keep the dimension of the extraordinary in the story. Gerda, in her search to find Kay, who is imprisoned by the Snow Queen, embarks on a journey like Alice in Alice in Wonderland.

Therefore, I play a lot on sizes, using tall flowers and other fantastic elements, so that the child-spectator will be taken on a journey which is far removed from his or her everyday life.

Your performances are very physical. How do you find a balance between speech/words and the corporal?

I always encourage the actors to act out their words primarily with use of their body. Even if I directed a play by Shakespeare or Pirandello, I wouldn’t change my approach.

For me, my role as director is to create theatre, which means the space that I discover in between the words. The writer writes a text. I try to find the action of the text. Therefore, in a story as simple as The Snow Queen movement needs to be very clear and powerful, because it is important that the stories connect to all audiences, regardless of language or age.

Is “The Snow Queen” addressed to children only?

It is basically dedicated to children. But when I refer to children, I include the children that are hidden within the adults as well. Therefore it is not a story for children in the sense of age. It is a fairy-tale dedicated to the child that we all carry within us.

A production like The Snow Queen is for everybody. It is a story to which everyone can relate on a different level. It has simplicity, in order for a child to understand it easily, but it also contains questions that concern the adults.

Do you treat the children in the audience as adults?

A child shares the same characteristics as an adult. They have a spiritual life, an emotional life, an intellect. The only difference is the lack of experience. Theatre for children is a great responsibility. Children require clarity and simplicity. The symbols must be recognizable. Therefore the selection of a symbol is a great responsibility, because it reveals for a child a world that is far away, but that is also within.

Can theatre change the lives of adults, of children?

I am absolutely certain that it can. Because, as life does, theatre provokes a reaction. Theatre is, in a way, religious or has a ritual quality, if the actors are good. And when I say ‘good’, I don’t mean simply that they know how to use their voice or their body correctly. I mean that they must be able to attract and maintain the audience’s attention.

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