Roberto Sturno is gone. Like this. It seems strange even to read it. Because the Mauri-Sturno Company was one of those things that one deludes oneself into thinking can go on forever. It happens with a certain theatre. With a precise way of doing theater that is increasingly rare, increasingly precious. That way of understanding a show, of thinking about it before even realizing it, leaves in those who have been lucky enough to witness it a clear memory, often condensed into a limited image. This also happened in «En attendant Beckett», a show with Glauco Mauri and Roberto Sturno. Between the folds of text and gesture. In Sturno’s mimic struggle, in his pursuit of paradox along the line of everyday life, in becoming something ductile and yet intangible, an almost incorporeal instrument of representation. There were so many amazing moments in that show. One was unforgettable. It’s still something to think about. Ask questions. Suddenly, almost like an interlude, the scene was crossed by two figures walking very slowly. At least that’s how it seemed. They were solemn. Cold. Entirely masked. Draped with fabric. The face covered. Everything suggested that they were Glauco Mauri and Roberto Sturno. But there could be no certainty. As spectators we were prey to a strange state of mind, a sort of uneasiness. Beckett was Ireland. And those two abstract, astral priestly figures brought to mind banshees. Walking in silence, they seemed to guard and restrain a cry. A funeral lament compressed into the void. The ravine of darkness, where the forest opens up in which you get lost and go crazy. The nameless place in which one wanders around in circles, losing one’s mind and strength.
The banshees proceeded to the edge of the stage. Solemn, silent, absorbed in their secret. If the structure of the room allowed it, they passed close to those sitting in the front row. It was like the passing of a shiver. The apocalypse that touched you. Which breathed for a second in your presence, met your gaze without revealing itself and flowed away in silence. Then you couldn’t help but think about it, with a sort of uneasiness. Thinking about it now, however, one wonders if it didn’t evoke the sense of death. The nothingness that advances and encounters. In that sphere words lost space. Their signifying convention evaporated. Then the boundaries of reality became thinner. In a cursed crescendo, the improbable became concrete and the impossible became inevitable. Once the reserves of logic collapsed, the constructions of reasoning were annulled, it was a matter of little. Last move yet. At that point it seemed consequential and legitimate to crumple up an entire map of the world and throw it aside. Rolled sheet with planet Earth on it. Street. No longer needed. Nothing is needed. There is only this ahistorical lament. Sunken. Repeated like an echo.
This is how the Theater plays its finest cards. His provocations. His feline sprint. The leap to the side. It is that Theater that is never self-referential, never a frivolous erudite game. Conversely, always, so to speak, conscious and alert applied art. Aware of the risk. Motionless on the threshold of death. The banshees passed as a season passes. Immediately after losing sight of them, the spectator felt a singular relief. The siege had eased and the nameless, faceless threat was gone. The glow of the apparition remained. The abyss that that apparition had opened had closed again. As if, on a page, the narrative had been written with faded and illegible ink. At that moment he realized he had been holding his breath. Of having escaped the danger. Of having been afraid and strangely saved. At least that time.