A blend of humourism and tragedy, Massimo Popolizio stages the famous work by Harold Pinter, which, sixty years on from its debut, still maintains its power to explore the warped dynamics, relationships of power, violence and disruption that characterise a family.
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Teatro Grassi
Massimo Popolizio direct and performs in The Homecoming, the celebrated work by Harold Pinter from 1964, a true “portrait of a family at home”. The members include the father Max – performed by Massimo Popolizio himself – an ex-butcher and horse-race enthusiast, his brother Sam, who drives a taxi that is not his property and who is constantly defined by Max as a leach, Max’s children Lenny, a thirty-year ex-pimp and liar who boasts of violent erotic adventures, and Joey, an aspiring professional boxer who is in reality the most fragile of them all.
The precarious family equilibrium is upset by the arrival one evening of another son, Teddy, an established philosophy professor returning from the United States after six years with his enigmatic wife Ruth, mother of their three children, to introduce her to his relatives. The only female figure in a male setting, Ruth stirs desire and sets in motion conflict, allowing her apparent fragility to evolve into a strategy for control and power. The events that unfold will overturn the already delicate balance of this community.
With a text that carries traits of a screenplay, Massimo Popolizio translates the cynicism, cruelty and humour of Pinter – which reaches its peak here – in a “dangerously” entertaining play. Shifting between humour and tragedy, it uncovers the psychological tension of Pinter’s writing, which exposes the unsettling truth of human nature and the power dynamics that lie within a family.
Duration: 1 hour and 40 minutes without intermission
Massimo Popolizio direct and performs in The Homecoming, the celebrated work by Harold Pinter from 1964, a true “portrait of a family at home”. The members include the father Max – performed by Massimo Popolizio himself – an ex-butcher and horse-race enthusiast, his brother Sam, who drives a taxi that is not his property and who is constantly defined by Max as a leach, Max’s children Lenny, a thirty-year ex-pimp and liar who boasts of violent erotic adventures, and Joey, an aspiring professional boxer who is in reality the most fragile of them all.
The precarious family equilibrium is upset by the arrival one evening of another son, Teddy, an established philosophy professor returning from the United States after six years with his enigmatic wife Ruth, mother of their three children, to introduce her to his relatives. The only female figure in a male setting, Ruth stirs desire and sets in motion conflict, allowing her apparent fragility to evolve into a strategy for control and power. The events that unfold will overturn the already delicate balance of this community.
With a text that carries traits of a screenplay, Massimo Popolizio translates the cynicism, cruelty and humour of Pinter – which reaches its peak here – in a “dangerously” entertaining play. Shifting between humour and tragedy, it uncovers the psychological tension of Pinter’s writing, which exposes the unsettling truth of human nature and the power dynamics that lie within a family.
Duration: 1 hour and 40 minutes without intermission
Credits
Ritorno a casa
by Harold Pinter
translation Alessandra Serra
directed by Massimo Popolizio
with Massimo Popolizio
and with Christian La Rosa, Gaja Masciale, Paolo Musio, Alberto Onofrietti, Eros Pascale
sets Maurizio Balò
costumes Gianluca Sbicca and Antonio Marras
lighting Luigi Biondi
sound Alessandro Saviozzi
a Compagnia Umberto Orsini, Teatro di Roma – Teatro Nazionale, Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa production
in collaboration with AMAT Associazione Marchigiana Attività Teatrali and the Municipality of Fabriano
PRICES
Category of performance: Coproduction
Stalls full price € 40 | Discounted (under 25 and over 65) € 23
Balcony full price € 32 | Discounted (under 25 and over 65) € 20
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