It isn’t often that the theatre building feels like part of the play, but the audience senses the atmosphere for Uccellini, lacasadargilla’s latest production, right upon entering the Coronet Theatre. Installations hang from the ceiling of the foyer, while the bar is decorated like an old stately home. It is candle-lit, with antiques, vintage mirrors and other curiosities on every surface. Through each corridor, the audience moves further away from the plainness of daily life and deeper into the haunting world created by writer Rosalinda Conti and directors Lisa Ferlazzo Natoli and Alessandro Ferroni. By the time they reach their seats, the audience is primed to see something unusual, and Uccellini delivers.
Also journeying into this strange world is Luka (Francesco Villano). Following two deaths at his family home deep in the Italian forest, he has avoided going back. Then, for his girlfriend Anna’s (Petra Valenti) birthday, something within him changes, and they travel there together for a short break.
Conflict arises when the house is not empty. Already living there is Theo (Emiliano Masala), Luka’s estranged brother. Dialogue between the two is smart and full of natural chemistry. While the play is performed in its native Italian, there are subtitle screens and, for the most part, they effectively convey the wit, cadence and nuances of the dialogue. In either language, it is easy to empathise with Theo and Luka because Masala and Villano bring so much intelligence and presence to their roles. In Luka we see a character who finds safety in avoidance, detachment and logic, while Theo sits in the middle of his grief, unable to move on until he can find meaning in everything.
The brilliance of Uccellini is how grief shows up in the play. It is a character in its own right, haunting the house through the shadowy images projected onto a thin hut-shaped screen that dominates the stage. A collaboration at lacasadargilla brings together Ferroni’s creative soundscapes with Maddalena Parisi’s curation of an unnerving visual environment, helping Uccellini blur the line between reality and imagination. There is even a hint of Ghibli-esque magical realism, though Uccellini is feistier with the topics at its heart.
As well as grief and the house being key characters in Uccellini, the late sister Mathilde also suffocates each scene through disturbing animal appearances and jarring birdsong. However, none of the above would resonate as strongly without Anna’s role as a narrator and her ability to recognise the strangeness of the house. Without Anna, there is no catalyst for change between the brothers, and Valenti plays the role with immense power, dynamism and thoughtfulness.
Stories of houses that carry grief and trauma may not be new, but Conti, lacasadargilla and the cast have taken those familiar elements and blended them with refreshing creativity. As a result, Uccellini is exciting, and while the audience may leave its surreal world behind upon exiting the theatre, the play’s ideas will remain with them for much longer.
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