Dalla sabbia dal Tempo
(From sand from Time)

a short journey in Jewishness

 

 

 

At once a point of arrival and departure, this show is not only an important phase in my work, but also one of the best loved and completely achieved.

A great part of my past history was poured into Dalla sabbia dal Tempo, finding in both the theme and in the performers and companions on this journey, the opportunity to embody a theatrical idea which had matured over the years, as well as the chance to verify that idea's structural lines.

Regarding this show, often mentioned but almost unknown, it may not be superfluous to spend a few words in addition to those quoted below from the program.

• Genesis

• Music

• Text

• Dramaturgy

• Image

• Movement

concept by Mara Cantoni and Moni Ovadia

dramaturgy, direction, sets and light design by Mara Cantoni

arrangements and musical coordination by Maurizio Deḥ

costumes by Luigi Benedetti






with Moni Ovadia  Olek Mincer
and the musicians
Mario Arcari  Maurizio Deḥ  Roberto Della Grotta
Cosimo Gallotta  Alfredo Lacosegliaz  Gian Pietro Marazza

produced by Cooperativa Teatro Franco Parenti



"Jewishness": words, music or silence?

First do, then you will know. Such is the advice of one of the Hassidic Masters; it is also a recurrent motif of the whole Hassidic movement. In a certain way, that's how it was for us, too. One of the first considerations Moni and I made in the face of such a worrisome and imprecise them - "Jewish Culture" - was that we really didn't know that much about it, we certainly were not erudites regarding it, even though we are both strongly Jewish. So, rather than deeply investigate history and religion, collect information and documentation, we proceeded to interrogate ourselves, in an effort to individuate the "Jewishness" within us, of which we were obscurely aware; we followed our own tracks before we even knew where we wanted to arrive. read on

(from the program)


the show in the photos of Maurizio Buscarino
We would like to report an intense, tender and sad show, as beautiful as its title: Dalla sabbia dal Tempo. The subtitle defines it as "a brief journey in Jewishness". read on

(Odoardo Bertani, Avvenire,
22 may 1987)

It is the great merit of director Mara Cantoni - besides having sewn sparse fragments and brief intuitions into a true text, with its own autonomous dramaturgical articulation - to have subtracted all this from the limits of a sophisticated cabaret or pure recital, and to have projected the transcendent exuberance of the actor-singer, his companion (...) and the six excellent musicians (...) into the perspective of an authentic theatrical creation, revealing in its sets made of black panels and pale sand, in the dark and ageless costumes worn by all the performers (...), in the rarefied and touching figurations used, a precise and refined stylistic key.

(Renato Palazzi, Corriere della Sera,
21 may 1987)

The show, created with great talent by Mara Cantoni (...), had the merit of also deeply involving the non-Jewish audience by accompanying it to a world where music, humour, inventiveness, melancholy, a set made with nothing, the sand on the stage, a black curtain, a wise play of lights, manage to transmit sensations and emotions which are part of the history of man.

(Erminia dell’Oro, Bollettino della Comunità Israelitica di Milano,
july 1987)

For other related works -
Moni, Teatro Franco Parenti, Jewish thematics - see

Il processo di Joseph K
Gruppo Folk Internazionale
Note spettinate
Dybbuk
Ballata di fine millennio
Famosi in tutta Europa

and for further reflection •