SA: Please introduce yourself to us...

FT: Well, I don’t know who I am, so it’s really difficult to tell it to others... I’m 30...I’m an actress-director. I attend at theatre studies from 13 years and I always feel I’m still learning. Somebody said: so much you’ll learn, so much you’ll see clearly you have more to understand

SA: What about your research...Can you tell us something about Chi per Es teatro , the meaning of this name and how did you met?

FT: Chi per Es... it’s an amazing story that mixes with something more serious: one day my boyfriend came home and told me that he met a “scalpellino” in a factory who was making a mask. “This is Chi per Esso” he said ( in italian it sounds like “somebody for him ”, we use to say, for example “ Pietro will do this or chi per esso”) Well, the thing I found extremly clever and sensitive was that he wanted to give a face to this “somebody”, he strongly desired to have someone concrete to talk with. And, above all, he DID something- and something nice- to have what he wanted. I ‘ve been touched by this, so much things came to my mind and composed like a puzzle: the Es represents the voice of Nature inside the Man... and it’s something concrete. So I kept off two letters and I found my own mask to talk with. My research starts everyday from my life: I don’t understand, I feel lost, I try to go deep inside, above all I try not to know in advance. This oriental concept of clearing mind from illusions and judgements is very interesting for me. I met Davide Chiarello few times during normal sunday evening dinners with friends. We never spoke, he’s very silent while I talk a lot and we both had a bad impression about the other. One day during a party, I don’t know how, we started to talk and we discovered we are so similar... We really feel things in the same way and comprehension between us is precise and almost imediate. We almost don’t need words. Now the company is growing up with other actors, visual artists, etc, but it’s soon to say how it goes!

SA: Your relevant past projects?

FT: Davide and I worked on Canto del Mali, an african traditional history. We wanted to tell this story to european people, so, improvising together music and acting for three weeks, we invented a completely new setting. We were really satisfied by the results so we decided to work on a more difficult subject.

In I & Holly- analysis of the distance between me and me we worked on transexuality, this time we started from a book and we composed text and musics to give voice to this circus of characters turning around Andy Warhol in the seventies. Big stars for a moment, but poor men and women for the rest of their life. It’s an interesting work on the opposites: inside/outside, reality/appearance, empty/full. This work is still in the theatres, we’ll be in Rome at the end of october...would you like to come and see the show?

SA: What's Africa for you, now, after this work on Canto del Mali. Did this work change your point of view about this attractive continent...I have a lot of italian friends who decided to live there...

FT: No, I didn’t change my point of view on Africa for this, I’ve travelled a little bit in Kenya, but I don’t really know this Big Black Mother... I simply feel closer to a little part of an enormous and complex culture. One of my dreams is to go and perform Canto del Mali for african people, to see how do they receive an african story told by an italian company.

SA: Thank you for your invitation...I'll be working on a performance at the end of this month...But I'm really interested in the essence of that circus you describe, because I think that some of these empty human beings touched in some moments the real essence of life and art of course...thanks to this emptiness, maybe. I remember a video by Andy Warhol “The Nude Restaurant” and a film “Basquiat”. Could you tell us something more about how did you work on this dual carachter Holly...I'm interested in the dualism empty/full.

FT: I had to go inside starting from outside: at te beginning I had a work on voice and movement, on appearance. I studied Holly’s movement and in a moment I realised Holly studied her own movement, she built it. And I felt emptiness, or freedom. I want to tell that empty is not a bad concept for me, I’m always full and I always desire an empty place inside where to live life. It’s not simple to explain it. It’s also been a work on awareness: Holly is not stupid, she knows exactly that world is sad and cruel, that a “strange human being” won’t be accepted as he or she is. That she will have to be a carachter in her social life or she will be simply rejected! That’s why we wanted to insert some empty moments on the show, moments in which Holly is only a tired body and words come out naturally, from a deeper, usually hidden, part of her.

SA: Which is the unifying center of your actress' activity, and of your company?

FT: Our goal is to be sincere and to build performances in which we really believe. When we decide the subject, the theme, it’s because something urgent is moving inside the group and we want to share it with audience. To be on the stage is very joyful for us, but it’s not enough, we try to preapare the conditions to make the exchange between actors and audience happens.

SA: Do you find some difficult in performing and directing at the same time?

FT: I do. The work is longer and I have to be merciless with myself. I also have some special friends that come and see our performances before we share them with audience. Anyway I find performing and directing at the same time more difficult when there are other actors, just like in this new version of Hamlet.

SA: Tell us something about your experience with Polish theatre

FT: That travel gave me new hope. In Wroclaw at Grotowsky center I met young actors and directors who worked so hard that I came back home feeling that it’s still possible to make living theatre. I went also to Cracow at Tadeusz Kantor’s Cricoteque and there I met some Kantor’s actors, I can only tell that they are open hart people. Then in Warszawa I worked with Piotr Borowski group, excellent actors and lovely men and women. Different styles, different organizations, but same strong desire of life.

SA: Is the dialectic body-mind important in your job?

FT: It’s important to let things circulate freely, in mind, body and emotion. That’s way I need time. We are bombed of informations and it’s not so easy and fast to hear the answer coming out from me. The risk, in my opinion, is to react everytime, to answer everytime partially, only with mind. But, in my opinion theatre- and life- has to be played by whole people.

SA: Tell us something about the method you use to let this free circulation happen in your creative process.Did you develop your own method? How did your theachers influenced your way of acting?

FT: When I finished school I felt ready to start a real work but I discovered that I was in a “technical cage” I could not invent or move. I had to leave on my back everything, to accept it and to work hard in “remove and not in put” as Michelangelo said. It’s simple to tell but not to do. Anyway it is always the same subject: if I’m full i’m not free. I usually try to relax my body, to tire it and this way I feel my mind more free and emotion is perceivable from body. I try not to dream but to feel.

SA: Where is the line between real and virtual for you?

FT: There’s no line, this is the problem!

SA: ...and between life and theatre?

FT: Mmmh! It’s important for me to feel I’m not playing “ the actress” role in my life. I want to be normal, anyway I know I play roles, Pirandello just told this theory... But it is different to play a role in theatre to tell something and to play roles-reactions?- in life ...I cannot stop it but I should try to be aware of it.

SA: Is there, or there should be, an ethic in theatre or in actor's job?

FT: I don’t know what should be, it’s so simple to tell that what I think is the right way of doing! Maybe I can begin asking myself what is “ethic”? And what is “ethic” for me? Of course I believe that people should be preapared for the job they do, not only actors, everybody!

SA: What about theatre's interaction with other forms of art and with technology?

FT: I think that you cannot make love with... an american for example, only because you want “ an american”. But if you fall in love with this american everything is possible, because the interactions starts from a real desire.

SA: Which is the role of music in a theatrical performance and in your life?

FT: Music is the art in which I can more easily recognize where vibrations touch me. And I feel I really need to be shaked, to give up and let the music penetrate me. Davide is a perfect fellow in this kind of experiments because he has a very good ability in listening the others and suggest them something right for the moment.

SA: What're your ideas about social, civil and political theatre?

FT: It depends on quality and intentions. Especially in this historical moment every word could be dangerous, because people begin to feel hungry and angry. Somebody who speaks louder than others, like actors, has a power and a big responsability, he has to be conscious not only of what he says but also of where his words should touch people.

SA: What about your next projects?

FT: Now we are working on Amlet for Festival Internazionale di Regia Teatrale that will take place in Genova at the beginning of november.
After this we’ll start a new project based on virtual reality, chat rooms and from the question “why is it more simple now, to meet people on the internet than in the street?” It’s a quest and we don’t want to give judgements, but to ask ourselves what’s for us the real meaning of this way of doing.

SA: They both are very interesting...Could you tell us more about your own point of view about what you call virtual reality, don't you think it's a new way to answer the hamletic question? Somebody says it's a selective or distorted way of being and communicate, for others is the perfect way to save time and live their own lifes....

FT: It’s all you said and more...it’s something very high, a big opportunity and an enourmous waste of time... I’ll start my research and I’ll tell you more!

SA: Thank you we're really interested in this research...Could you suggest us any author or theatre company or actor to let us know your tastes ? Your favourite performance and performer?

FT: I suggest you Ofiara Wilgefortis by Teatr Wierszalin...a magic show. I also loved Fura dels Baus’ first period and in general new creative theatre groups. But above all and on a completely different way of doing I’m a “platonic pupil” of Peter Brook and I try to follow his steps.