The review – Money, money, money and more
A story of love, money and goddesses who descend to the “Land without dreams” to find at least one good person, who is happy but not at the expense of others. The director of the production Dreamlessland, Paolo Alessandri, was inspired by Brecht’s play The Good Man from Sichuan, and the ensemble of the Theatre Academy in Rome Sofia Amendeloa met the ideas of epic theatre under his direction. They created a mythical, universal narrative about the human past, present and probably the future.
Working with language, choreography, styled acting, stage design and costumes, they create a story that is universally valid all over the world. Impersonalized, mostly screamed dialogues are conducted in English, but the characters intersperse the sentences with Spanish, French or Hindi expressions. In addition to the main characters, a nameless crowd also appears on the stage. Its rhythmic, puppetry movement thematizes existence in the “Dreamless Land.” A land where people live ashy lives only for work – or, more brown in this case (if we take into account the sand-coloured uniform costumes of everyone on the scene). In a place where people do not have dreams, there is no time to think and have any life-giving individuality.
The stage set consists of an empty wooden floor. The bakery building is indicated only by a rectangle made of paper tape glued to the ground. A few bags of pastries serve as props. The music that frames the whole story is just as simple. The recurring theme “One two three four, give me one, give me more” is sung by actors a cappella. In addition, the metal coins on the gypsy scarf are constantly ringing into their tones. In Dreamlessland, money is the reason people don’t have dreams. The coins in their heads completely covered them.
The creators were thus able to effectively demonstrate how money destroys relationships and turns us into unhappy people, whether we have the means or not. The production shows what a universal problem we created on our planet without dreams and how we can no longer solve it. Just as it will not be resolved on the stage, where in the end the actors remain embarrassed and everything disappears into a question mark rather than a dot.
Natálie Bulvasová (DAMU)