LUCE estratti LUCE 324 _ Calafiore _ Cristian Zucaro | Page 7

The harmony of light on stage A conversation with Cristian Zucaro W hat facts and circumstances led to your entrance in the theatre world? My interest in dramatic art began when I was a child. As a teenager it was a game of relations with the world around me. During military service, to escape from that world that was so far from me, I took acting classes when I was off duty; a creative group was formed in that context, and I started to follow that path. When the military service was over, I joined the theatre company Laboratorio Teatro Settimo directed by Gabriele Vacis. Thanks to the cultural policies of the times, in the early Nineties, it was easy to join a company, where one could work and train professionally, and it was there, as I explored the different jobs in the theatre world, that “I saw the light”. Again, I must refer to Laboratorio Teatro Settimo, as we met there in ‘95. A few years later, we had each followed our own path after our experience with Vacis, and we met by chance in the street in Santarcangelo. She was working on the play Mpalermu, which later won the Scenario prize in 2001, and she needed a lighting technician. And from that moment onwards, we both found an excellent harmony, which has grown over the years. I must say that in plays like Vita mia (My life) or, more recently, Le Sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso sisters), and generally in all the shows Emma puts on stage, composing very powerful images, starting from the rehearsals she often stimulates an immediate input in me, to find the light for her theatrical sequence. Who were your teachers, your points of reference? Initially the theatre group at Laboratorio Teatro Settimo, and after that there have been a number of masters that I have met and that I continue to meet – the theatre world is a great resource where there are teachers everywhere –, some lighting designers I have worked with or who I have spied on, and also some stage electricians and other workers specialized in theatre and shows; Goya and Caravaggio, and also my daughters’ drawings. I believe that if you pay attention, in every moment of our life we can come across teachings, we may be taught lessons; I feel that if we are permeable we can follow a path that we can customize, thus creating our own personal vision of the world. It may seem inappropriate to speak of theatre lights in a place that was born for shows en plain air, but actually the theatre is the first place where man has searched, created and elaborated an aesthetic and symbolic value of light, starting from the Hellenistic age. What type of reaction did this element create in your view of Heracles? I had a strong reaction when I visited the Greek theatre in Siracusa about fifteen years ago. I was a visitor and while I was there, the trilogy Prometeo incatenato (Prometheus Bound), Le Rane (The frogs) and Le Baccanti (The Bacchae) directed by Ronconi, was being set up. It made me travel back in time, I was fascinated by that experience, I saw the thread that connected 3,000 years of history of mankind in that theatre, a sensation that is still vivid in my mind today. How have you worked with Emma Dante in the How was your long collaboration with Emma Dante born, and how was it consolidated? 3 direction, the scenography and, last but not least, in the theatre-architecture and the ancient archaeo-natural scenario of the Greek theatre? Can you reveal some of the pivotal points of the last show you set up? As usual, Emma gave me a great amount of freedom to interpret her directing choices with my lighting. Obviously, since the show begins at the end of the day in a theatre as unique as this, I abandoned myself in contemplation of the place, of the natural light, the sunsets, the twilight. I tried to follow the nature of the events, searching for a light that could support the natural light almost without being seen and at the same time that could accompany the specific moments of the tragedy, searching for a balance, and also bearing in mind that each day is a new day, spring is progressing, summer draws near and the light changes. The initial idea was to create a sort of back-up natural light, an illusion that would prolong the day time, the sunset, and the twilight a little longer, up to darkness. What are the requirements, from the point of view of lighting design, of working in a scenario in which everything (or almost everything) can be seen? The stage of the Greek theatre in Siracusa, I imagine, requires a strongly site specific approach! A fascinating and unique creative challenge! This aspect strengthened my decision to discard easy illusions, and to work in harmony with the space, using very few lighting fixtures, each chosen for a specific purpose. What are the first steps and processes that you follow when a director offers you a collaboration? On what inputs/outputs is the collaboration with the director, the scenographer and the actors based on? There can be different approaches to a new theatre performance. I usually start from the text, and I start to find the sense of the play in my mind. We then sit down and discuss the play, and analyse suggestions that are shared with the creative group, the project guidelines. Generally during rehearsals, I dedicate time to listening, to perceiving what reaches me, and abandoning the logic, and at times even the sight, and trying to find a sort of music; in this way I see the images that clearly need to be translated with regard to the stage, the costumes and the sound. Lighting in your shows often has very strong contrasts, and at the same time it is clear, often it is single-directional. What creative and technical processes do you use to focus your language, your visual sign? I do not know if I can explain this. It is a process that is constantly underway and I try not to stop too long with findings and things that I know how to do. I try to trick myself, inventing obstacles even though apparently there aren’t any. I do not recognize my visual sign because I try to evolve around it, and move ahead so to say; I can say that I search for a light that is organic, with the scene, with the actors, and that has a soul. In the past years we have seen a growing dissolution of the scenography on stage, and MAGIC LANTERN / LUCE 324 85