What I'd really like to achieve with the workshop students is a serious production—professional-quality theater," Alessandra Panelli had told us in an earlier interview. With her production of Cyrano, she has done exactly that. There's no doubt about it. We watch the troupe of street performers tumble across the village square, see Harlequin and Punch mime and joke, admire the cavalry of Gascon cadets parading in a storm of music and feathers, witness Roxane's silent grief at Christian's death, marvel at the hand-to-hand combat of the battle, lit by flashes of livid light.
All the actors are people with disabilities—those with Down syndrome, those using wheelchairs, those with cerebral palsy, those with mental illness.
No "normal" people appear on stage, though the director works with an iron hand behind the scenes, and stagehands and prompters labor at full capacity.
How does one achieve such a result?
We wish we could unveil some secret to share with all our theater-loving friends. The truth is far simpler: passionate dedication, real technical expertise, months of sustained work, professional resources, and the gift of drawing young people into the imaginative world of theater.
Still, let us try to list what we believe made this achievement possible.
- The choice of text itself—no easy task, but full of imagination and action, with a "different" man, distinguished by a great nose, as protagonist.
- The director's vision to adapt the script to the actors' capabilities, using the device of street performers who act out the play's main scenes in a village square, like a game of snakes and ladders.
- The preparation of the actors, sustained over many months, leaving no aspect of performance untouched: language, bodily expression, discovery of rhythm and musical accompaniment.
- The choice of music—lively, melancholic, or joyful, sometimes barely audible, sometimes driving forward, always evocative—which underscores and illuminates every action.
- The richness and care of the staging. The magnificent costumes from the renowned Tirelli atelier transform faces and figures by themselves, helping each actor step into character. The lighting turns every scene to magic and solves some of the most dramatic moments entirely. The sets, simple but functional, let the actors move with confidence.
- The actors and their characters. It seems to us crucial that the director recognizes in each performer that distinctive quality, that particular gift or skill that makes him or her perfectly suited to play one role or another. But first intuition alone is not enough. As Alessandra explained, she and her actors examine the story and personality of each character together. The actors are encouraged to reflect on events, to step into the character's shoes, to experiment through improvisation. And so it happens that the handsome Christian speaks easily in Roman dialect.
In this way, the production breaks free from rigid formulas. The actors abandon themselves to moments of genuine instinct. The rhythm between lines can stretch or contract. Little interludes let one actor or another perform a brief solo turn.
From all of this emerges a complete production of genuine professional caliber—one that brings joy to the audience and gratification to those who perform it.
It comes as no surprise that after this experience and other theatrical work before it, the "Diverse Abilities" workshop has broadened its horizons. The group will now tour as a Resident Theater Company to other European countries, with European funding, one hopes, making contact and exchanging performances with similar theater groups from France and Spain.
Dear friends of theater, our heartfelt congratulations to every one of you—from Alessandra Panelli to Antonio Greco, from Harlequin to Roxane, to the talented Grano and to everyone else. You've shown us what can be achieved on a stage, and we are grateful. Consider us, at Ombre e Luci, your most devoted fans.
- M. T. Mazzarotto, 1998