JAN FABRE/TROUBLEYN

5/6 november
Teatro Olimpico

Fatal attraction? Fierce and fiery as ever, Jan Fabre meets the mythological figure who stole fire from the Gods to donate it to mankind. His new production “Prometheus Landscape II”, débuts in Italy and promises to plunge the spectator into the stormy ocean of mythology, rendered more tempestuous with a present-day vision of aggression and poetics.

Visual artist, director, choreographer, author and scenographer, Fabre has been present in the international theatrical scene since the 1980's. His incessant theatrical research ranging over a wide variety of disciplines together with his irrepressible energy which draws together highly diverse creative inputs such as dance, drama, installations, musical theatre are ingredients for a powerful and sometimes «cruel» cultural product. Ever-present at the centre of his work is mankind with its eternal questions articulated in a surreal manner converging aesthetics and ethics: anthropological and political issues become material for his «warriors of beauty » as he defines his group of artists.

In Prometheus he sees a key figure in western culture: the Titan who—with the help of Zeus—manages to defeat the other Titans to then rebels against the father of the Gods to take the side of the mortal beings, giving them the gift of fire and with this gift, giving then also power over matter.

Fabre has used two texts for this work, one written by himself and another by Jeroen Olyslaegers, inspired by Aeschylus' classic tragedy “Prometheus Bound”. Imprisoned by Zeus in the Caucasus in punishment for his rebellion, Prometheus is trapped in a dimension void of history or time, abandoned to the elements while birds of prey eat away his liver during the daylight hours which grows back again during the night. With evident scorn for death and sufferance, he manifests defiance, a fundamental act for mankind and civilisation. This is the inflammatory question that Fabre’s new production poses. Who are our present-day heroes? Is that same flame—a gift for mankind with which to build civilisation—the same tool used by mankind to invent war? Is that same contempt for death and sufferance the cause of the unending conflagrations which have troubled in the Caucasus throughout history?