The Legacy of Pier Paolo Pasolini: Post-Show Panel Discussion

A post- show panel discussion about Pier Paolo Pasolini, the writer of 'Pylade', and his legacy was held following the performance on Sunday, December 13th. A large portion of the audience stayed to hear the panelists, Pietro Bocchia, Francesca Cadel, Mark Epstein and Luca Peretti, discuss the history of 'Pylade' in performance, the artistic process, and the audience experience after this show that has critics raving! Only two performances remaining on December 17 & December 18th at 7pm!

On the history of performances of “Pylade”:

Mark Epstein:

"His ideas, the cultural right, is precisely to involve people, involving people in the dialogue. Pasolini was the last person to want to close something, or the last person to want to write the recipe. You can have the high level of plutonic, or socratic dialogue or you can have the most bodily, popular level involving people- They are just as much dialogic, on different levels...."

Luca Peretti:

"It's important to emphasize, he's not necessarily known in Italy as a playwright... Novelist, film-maker, essayist, public intellectual, and some of these things are known abroad. I mean, he's definitely known in the US and elsewhere as a director. His films are well-known. Many of the other aspects of his life, including his role as an essayist with a say on politics and society, are well-translated. His part in theatre somehow minor. It's not, in Italy, that we deal with his theatre everyday. It's very rare to see it represented. That's why it's great to be here! And it's a great opportunity- even for Italians."

On audience experience:

Mark Epstein:

"I like the connection between corporeality and his materialism and then, obviously, I think the director pulled from other parts of Pasolini- like when you had those first sexual scenes and he's talking about industry and the economy of the city, this classically refers to Salom. There are parts where he took references and placed them to other words. Overall I thought it was successful and the way you embodied different arts that also have strong populist roots, like dance, song, I thought that was successful. Nobody can dare speak for Pasolini, but I think maybe in the spirit of that, he would have appreciated it."

On artistic process:

Mark Epstein:

“One  brief thing: Pasolini virtually didn’t direct. I mean, he directed when he was a young man. He directed in 1968 and in the program he very much insisted to have a dialogue with the public afterwards so I think that’s very, very important.”

About the Panelists:

Doctor Pietro Bocchia obtained his master-degree in 'Italian and Romance Philology, Literature and Linguistics' from the State University of Milan, with a thesis on Dante, entitled: "The Semantic Field of War in Dante's 'Inferno': The Interior Struggle (Pugna Spiritualis) in cantos 2nd and 9th", in 2009. He obtained his doctoral degree in "History of Italian Language and Literature" from the State University of Milan, with a dissertation on Petrarch, entitled "The Theme of Interior Struggle in Petrarch's Familiares, Secretum,    Canzoniere and Trionfi,” in 2013. He is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. in Italian Studies at Notre Dame University. His dissertation will focus on Pasolini's intellectual formation throughout the Sixties and, in particular, on Pasolini's 1968 works. Doctor Pietro Bocchia has published articles on Dante and Petrarch in peer-reviewed journals and in miscellaneous books (Il Censimento dei commentatori danteschi.Naples: Salerno. 2014, Esperimenti danteschi 2008. Genova: Marietti. 2009). Also, he collaborates with the ''Opera del Vocabolario Italiano', a prestigious Florentine institution, which is working on the "Dictionary of Ancient Italian". His article "The Relationship between Reason and Religion in Pasolini's Works: the Case of 'Theorem'" is forthcoming on the international journal 'Rivista di Studi Pasoliniani'.

Francesca Cadel teaches Italian Studies at University of Calgary. She received her Doctorat in Italian from the University of Sorbonne-Paris IV and her PhD in Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has published a monograph on Pier Paolo Pasolini (La lingua dei desideri. Il dialetto secondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Manni, Lecce, 2002), an anthology (with Davide Rondoni: Poeti con nome di donna, BUR, Milano, 2008), articles on Pasolini, Zanzotto, Pound, Morante, and several interviews (with Andrea Zanzotto, Pina Kalc, Nico Naldini, Antonio Negri. With Paola Nastri she editedCarlo Collodi’s masterpiece (Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino, New York, Farinelli, 2013). Her current book project is entitled Cultural Landscapes in Post Fascist Italy: Umberto Saba (1883-1957), Elsa Morante(1912-1985), Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975).

Mark Epstein is a translator and researcher in Italian culture, literature and film. He has translated a number of volumes for Princeton University Press, and currently several works are in progress for University of Minnesota Press. He has written on Galvano della Volpe, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Claudio Magris, Igino Tarchetti, Carlo Dossi, Giuseppe Rovani, Alberto Moravia, Sebastiano Timpanaro and recently especially on Pier Paolo Pasolini. His most recent essay, which appeared this October is “Uccellacci e uccellini: vie nuove verso il realismo” which appeard in Pier Paolo Pasolini: prospettive americane, with Metauro publishers.

Luca Peretti is a PhD candidate in Italian and in Film and Media Studies at Yale. He works on industrial cinema, Jewish Italian culture, and Italian intellectual history.He co-edited a volume on terrorism and cinema, and a dossier for Senses of cinema on Pasolini. He is a freelance journalist and festival organizer.

La MaMa presents
PYLADE 
by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Director Ivica Buljan
English Translation Adam Paolozza and Coleen MacPherson
Assistant Director Arthur Adair 

Music Composer Michael Sirotta 
Additional Music Yukio Tsuji and Heather Paauwe 
Light Designer Mike Riggs 
Costume Designer Ana Savić Gecan
Company Coach George Drance 
Dramaturg Zishan Ugurlu 
Stage Manager Zulivet Diaz

Great Jones Repertory Company Performers Eugene the Poogene, Maura Donahue, Cary Gant, John Gutierrez, Valois Mickens, Tunde Sho, Chris Wild, Mia Yoo and Perry Yung
Special Guest Artist Marko Mandić 

Thursday December 17, 2015 at 7pm

Friday, December 18, 2015 at 7pm

The Ellen Stewart Theatre

66 East 4th Street

(between Bowery and Second Avenue)
New York, NY 10003 

Tickets: $25 Adults; $20 Students/Seniors

For Tickets and info: CLICK HERE