La gioia

Pippo Delbono met Bobò in 1995 at the psychiatric hospital of Aversa. A born actor who could neither read, write nor speak, and who has since died.

Won over by a terrible melancholy and even a kind of despair, the Italian director begins a dizzying journey towards gioia, simple joy. Joy that suddenly resurges in life, the songs, the music, the dance step. What memory does the theatre keep of all these little nothings of everyday life? How to return them to their naked truth?

In La gioia, created in 2018, Pippo Delbono composes a dreamlike and floral symphony above which hovers the spirit of Bobò. On stage, the melancholy of the Tango, the notes of Nick Cave or the jazz standard Petite fleur by Sydney Bechet gently suspend time. While the artist/florist Thierry Boutemy makes flowers of all colours “rain” in torrents. The marvelous takes root here and spreads gladness and calms pain. Unless it’s our own. Alternately, Pippo Delbono in jeans and shirt, and the actors of the troupe dressed in fanciful costumes come forward and express their feelings, their tenderness. Baroque figures that build a singular universe, full of fantasy and consolation.

Memories, lives lived, love, beauty and politics all come together in the same bouquet. This is probably where La gioia gets its beauty, its overwhelming joy.