«Harlequin has always been born from its ashes, never the same, always moving». This was how, in 1990, Giorgio Strehler greeted the “Buongiorno” version of Harlequin, with Soleri and the young students from the Piccolo Academy.
«Harlequin 2024; a marvellous anachronism or an acronical spectacle? – asks Stefano de Luca, curator of the staging – I am approaching the new edition with immense curiosity; it comes charged with unexplored challenges and brand-new opportunities for reflection. How will these young actors face up to the work on Harlequin? We are about to climb into a time machine, like the one imagined by Wells, which will take us on an exploration of an “ancient” theatrical world. I am embarking on this journey convinced that it is possible to return richer with experience for the challenges of the present. Perhaps because I have great faith in this simple game, as ancient as mankind, a land in which infancy and ancestral rituals come together in the joy of donning masks. Harlequin is an analogical play in an ever-increasingly virtual world. No screens, projections, lighting or sound effects. The musicians blowing into their instruments, the smell of the candles, the poise of the ladies in their corsets, masks and make-up cancelling the faces that are constantly displayed though selfies. Harlequin, an ensemble piece in times of relentless individualism; Strehler’s directing, with its strict rules, is a concerted piece of rhythm and tone, a score of gestures and movements, in which freedom is conquered, and the personality of the individual at the service of a harmonious group. Harlequin, a play in which language is a constant interweaving of Italian dialects, an unmistakable representation of diversity, in an era of linguistic globalisation. Hybridisation and contamination, in which local identity and character address the entire world, thanks to their uniqueness. Simple props, screens, candlesticks, fans, the pudding, bows and somersaults. It is not so far removed from how it may have been in Goldoni’s times, similar to how it has been since 1947. Yet one should imagine this Harlequin for 2024 as an absolute novelty, full of memories and at the same time of that joyful and necessary oblivion that only youth can provide. A play for the present that dances with lightness, in balance on the wire of time, suspended between the past and the future.»