A Whole New Avventura
Stage-bound is not a term one is apt to associate with the minimalist, resolutely un-dialogue-driven movie worlds of Michelangelo Antonioni. But that hasn’t deterred Ivo van Hove (the artistic director of the Netherlands’ most acclaimed theater company) from adapting three of the Italian master’s scripts into a single, wildly ambitious theatrical experience. Opening in February at the Barbican in London, van Hove’s Antonioni Project combines L’avventura, La notte, and L’eclisse in one narrative; the ennui-afflicted couples of all three are introduced discretely, then cross paths in the play’s second half. Antonioni Project also mixes media in its presentation of these stories, having its actors play against a blue screen and projecting their images into images of different spaces on a large screen above the stage while they enact their roles onstage. Read more about this fascinating play from writer Maxie Szalwinska in the Guardian.