CROMOSOMIE
CROMOSOMIE
A Journey into Gender
Directed by Gaddo Bagnoli
Performer by Andrea Magnelli
Original music by Sebastiano Bon e Francesco Canavese
Costume by Ilaria Parente
Ph by Margherita Busacca
Video by Lisa Cerri
Produced by Scimmie Nude (2015)
The play made its debut on 24 March 2015 at Teatro della Contraddizione in Milan, as part of the 2014/2015 season.
A monologue on gender identity, on the borderline between science and poetry.
CROMOSOMIE is the result of an intense search through the differences, similarities, incompatibilities and complementarities that exist between the human sexes, a play that unfolds on the edge between science and poetry.
Pursuing his calling to study man-animal, Bagnoli directs Andrea Magnelli around a topic that still forms disputes and dark areas in the encounter/clash between the various sexual genders.
The company’s work strives to investigate the presumed differences that now more than ever have cancelled male and female ‘boundaries’, to develop social and genetic alternatives that are projecting our society towards an uncertain future of behaviour, reactions, ways and structures of living, which are still distant and difficult to understand.
A play that shows all the limits and qualities of our fragile humanity through the game of attraction and reproduction, in our continual dealings with our biological nature.
A live journey brought to the stage solely through the actor’s body/voice, the space and the few symbolic objects (a red parallelepiped, a blue ball and a yellow egg); interesting owing to its scientific rigour and enthralling thanks to the poetry at its core; an inner and outer analysis that manages to be comical too, towards Man and that “Y” chromosome that makes the difference.
EXTRACTS FROM PRESS REVIEW
“The dramaturgical idea is clear: to speak of ‘genders’ without embarking upon a social investigation. Indeed the Scimmie Nude’s intention is not to make a report or document (…) And they are even less interested in making a denouncement. On the contrary, here the curiosity focuses on that natural convergence between male and female, which spontaneously lives together in each one of us. (…) An apparently light-hearted play, without doubt enjoyable, fun… stunning, thanks to Magnelli’s excellent mimicry.”
Francesca Romana Lino, Fatti di teatro
“Cromosomie is an Encounter. It is finding yourself face-to-face between man and woman, between male and female, between the two sexes, facing yourself, looking at and listening to yourself, an encounter with yourself. “
Clara Galbini, Rumorscena
“For the Scimmie Nude, theatre only makes sense if it has the courage to stage the truth of the human person, which consists of impulses much more than elaborate reflections.
It is a discourse that these men and women have been carrying on for over a decade, with more than noteworthy results. Cromosomie is a fundamental step in their artistic journey, one which stands out thanks to its quality and genius, but also that rarest of commodities, consistency. Their performances have always been investigations into all of us who populate this planet. Investigations into citizens who are above suspicion, who to all appearances are more or less normal. But, in their unconscious, they hear those background noises that Andrea has so masterfully brought to the stage.
The Scimmie Nude have nor ever will make light of their theatrical language. It is a choice that without doubt means less economic gain, but it brings about the by-no-means negligible privilege of being able to look at themselves in the mirror of a morning without
ever being ashamed of their faces. They tackle the rousing adventure of the stage naked like the primates of their name [Scimmie Nude means “naked monkeys”]. And what they achieve on the national theatre scene is, indeed, primacy.”
Francesco Mattana, saltinAria
RERUNS
Teatro della Contraddizione, March 24th to 29th, 2015, Milan
It Festival, May 13th and 16 th, 2015, Milan
Spazio Aità, November 16th-17th, 2015, Brescia
Magnifico Visbaal Teatro, November 13rd-14th, 2015, Benevento
Spazio Scimmie Nude, March 20, 2016, Milan
Spazio Scimmie Nude, December 18, 2016, Milan