ELENAVANNONI
theatre
Bites by Kay Adshead
Bites by Kay Adshead
Italian traslation by Andrea Peghinelli
German traslation by Katharina Schneider
Teatro dell’Orologio Roma
Theater Engelbrot&Spiele Berlin
Director:
Elena Vannoni
Collaboration:
Roberto Mantovani
Stage/ Costume:
Gabriele Salvaggio / Cristina Gamberini
Dramatic Advisor:
Katharina Schneider
Music/Sound:
Lorenzo Brusci
Cast:
Carlo Emanuele Esposito
Tabea Heynig
Marc-Gratian Iancu
Alice Masprone
Veronika Steinböck
Dominique Wendler
Assistents Directer:
Martina Neu, Cecilia Nocella
Organisation:
Kirsten Wiegand, Marina Sgarri, Bettina Jänisch
About the author and the play
Kay Adshead is a British actress, poet and playright who is not afraid of addressing mostly social and political issues in her work. She won a Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival 2000 with The Bogus Woman, a ‘kafkaesque’ quasi-documentary account of the sufferings of asylum seekers.
In her play Bites, premiered in 2005 at the Bush Theatre in London, Adshead brings out the contradictions between the rich and opulent West – typified by the Texan cowboy – and the countries suffering from the global inequalities – in this case represented by Afghanistan. In a series of short scenes, with both themes and characters running through them, she contrasts the bitter life of the poor in one country with the excesses of the rich.
A big clue about Kay Adshead's ambition is in the two inspirations behind the play: first, a woman from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and secondly the playwright's own experiences in Texas since 9/11.
“Once we drove the 750 miles from Houston to El Paso through the Chihuahua desert. Skeletons of little diners poked through the yellow grit advertising Coca-Cola from yore. These became the inspiration for my play ‘Bites’. America spoon-feeds us the myth and we swallow it whole,” explains Adshead.
Geographically speaking the play crosses the globe, moving from Afghanistan to Texas, via Guantanamo Bay. The first course is being brought down directly from the mountains in Afghanistan: A soup made from stars and dreams, prepared by some women trying to survive the cruel reality in which they live.
The gastronomic journey goes on to gluttonous Texas, where the Mexican help finds herself experiencing a humiliation close to that of the hog on the spit. At the end, after having tasted other various meals, the climax comes in form of an explosive dessert, in an America which is experiencing an apocalyptic future, where finally the poor and exploited take their little revenge.
Bites received its world premiere in 2005 in London. The Italian-German company TEATRIFICIO Ass.Cult. has in 2008 premiered the play in the capitals of Italy and Germany.
Synopsi
This very topical political text by the British author Kay Adshead is being served in the form of a seven-course meal, using a very poetical and striking language, which makes it edible but not exactly ‘digestible’.
Every dish narrates a barbarous inhumane story. The simplicity of the lyric poetry mixed with a pungent sarcasm unifies the seven courses to one big feast. The actors, each one playing several roles, start off on a common level, which is the restaurant, a place in ruins only reminiscent of a an already devoured banquet, an almost lunar landscape consisting of decades of decomposing leftovers.
The author:
I started to write Bites after hearing a woman from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) speak to the Fabian Society in London. As a liberal woman, I was astonished at my ignorance about Afghanistan. While our lives since the 1970's had been moving forward, their lives had been moving backwards. Women who had been doctors or university lecturers were now forced to stay at home, under pain of the most terrible punishment or even death.
At the same time, I was living for part of the year in Texas and was almost as surprised at what I found there. I was expecting lives out of the iconic TV series Dallas and instead I found Mexico's cousin. A life closer to the developing world than I had imagined, in the richest country in the world.
I was particularly fascinated by the power of the Second Baptist Church in the Lone Star State and at the discovery that they were the largest funders of Republican America.
Without wishing to appear trite, I saw some analogies between American religious fundamentalism and their attitude to women, and Afghanistan under the Taliban (and, unfortunately, the new reconstructed westernized Afghanistan).
Moving from the "greatest" democracy in the planet to the newest, Bites takes us back to Afghanistan via Texas. In The Last Diner at the End of the World, ravaged by war, a menu of love, death and revenge is served by the hired help. Seven courses make for a poetic feast of universal tales looking back to the forgotten war and forward to a nightmarish future.
Elena Vannoni's production of my play is visually witty and darkly intelligent, capturing the (hopefully) timeless and universal essence of the tales. She directs her talented and versatile cast boldly and with intuition and flair. I loved the total theatre of her production, which is beautiful, haunting, emotionally raw, and brave. She is an exceptionally skilled and sensitive interpreter of my work.
