Gelsomina

La Strada.

We have all seen the wonderful film by Federico Fellini, with its three main characters, Zampano, the brutal Hercules of the fair, the Fool, acrobat-tightrope walker and… Gelsomina, the candid little girl sold by her mother to Zampano to go and do the artist.

It is this Gelsomina that Nina Karacosta performs poignantly to a magnificent text by Pierrette Dupoyet, adapted from the film with the approval of Giuletta Masina and the Maestro himself!

NIna, talented Greek actress and poet, takes us into the story from her first words spoken with a slight charming accent. With an intense presence on stage, she will be Gelsomina, her mother, then Zampano, then the Fool, moving from one character to another with mastery, in beautiful fluidity.
Portraits embodied with great sensitivity, not devoid of touches of humor.
Gelsomina is a woman-child, a bit stupid.

Simple minded ?

Her reflections, seemingly naive, are particularly profound… How does one go about becoming a woman? … Do you believe that the dead look at us, that the spirits seek to speak to us? … We should always find out where things come from and how they began to exist… Silence is clean, while words are stolen from you, disguised…

Zampano, crude, bestial, constantly reprimands her. Never soft words… grunts, reproaches…
And she meets The Fool!
The tightrope walker who eats spaghetti perched on his wire, his head in the clouds!
Much nicer than Zampano, Il Matto! Affectionate, friendly.
He will teach her to play the trumpet, look at her as something alive, and there she will begin to live.
Il Matto will die at the hands of the jealous Zampano. … Would the colossus with a heart of stone be capable of love?

Disturbing questions about love, its strangeness, its uncertain and unusual, enigmatic and mysterious paths. “It’s the mystery, the great mystery that overwhelms us all,” said Gelsomina, adding these heartbreaking words towards Zampano: “Maybe you love me forever”…

The golden era of Italian neorealism!
A minimalist decor, three painted panels, an old bicycle, in the absence of the motorcycle from the film, and we are transported to the Strada, the Italian roads of Tuscany in the 1950s.
La Strada.

Gelsomina
By Pierrette Dupoyet, based on La Strada by Federico Fellini
Director: Driss Touati
With: Nina Karacosta
Until May 5, 2024, every Sunday at 7 p.m.
At the Folie Theater
6 rue de la Folie Méricourt, 75011 Paris

Copyright ©2024 – IMPACT EUROPEA

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Gerard CROSSAY

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