Who is that funny, strange bird? Where does he come from? Nobody knows. It seems he was just in time to grab his chair and run off. It seems he’s homeless. “Room for one more?” asks Alfredo as he looks for somewhere to stay. But everyone has their good reasons to turn him away.
As for Sonia, we know that she lives alone in a house at the end of the woods and is reluctant to leave her little kingdom because everything she needs is there. She has no need for anything else. Until, one day someone stops in front of her house, sits on a chair and waits.
That someone, as you’ve probably guessed, is Alfredo. At first Sonia is disturbed by the presence of this funny, strange bird. “Who is he?” she wonders worriedly. “What can he possibly want?” Then, driven by curiosity, she decides to approach him and... “Good morning. Fancy a coffee?” she asks the stranger. Friendships are often born like this from a simple, kind gesture. Sonia and Alfredo’s blossoms over a cup of coffee... and then another... and another and becomes deep and meaningful.
But one day Alfredo disappears. Sonia sets off to find him, at first surprised and then worried. So worried that she plucks up enough courage to leave her home to find him... Where could Alfredo possibly be?
Sonia and Alfredo is a simple, delicate and moving story about friendship and solidarity. It’s about what happens when we experience exclusion and solitude; about that comforting feeling when we find a home and a friend; about how we feel when we find the courage to face unknown situations for someone else’s sake.
Sonia and Alfredo is told through few, essential words and puppets drawn simply but to great effect. Figures that on the white shadow theatre screen come to life thanks to the presence of two actors/ animators and become characters that are able to represent, through clean gestures and touching simplicity, the great themes of life.
This production is based on the books Go away, Alfredo! and Are you there, Alfredo? by Catherine Pineur, edited by Pastel/Ecoledeloisirs. The first of which has been published in Italian by Babalibri.
The stage version, for actors and shadows, is based on and rolls the contents of both books into one story.
The author. Catherine Pineur (1969) studied illustration at the Institute Saint-Luc Liège and at the Atelier d’illustration des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg. She lives in Belgium with her two young children in a house in the country surrounded by hills.
Teatro Gioco Vita was established in 1971 and was among the first Italian realities to be protagonist of the movement of theatrical animation. Teatro Gioco Vita gave its original contribution to the theatre for young people, through its animation, its distinct flair and its way of conceiving and living the theatre, the relationships, the research and the culture that characterized it from its very first experiences. Teatro Gioco Vita meets the shadow theatre in the late seventies. Thanks to its work done with consistency and professionalism and also to the contribute of outside collaborators, it completed an experience, unique in its kind, that got him awards and prestigious collaborations everywhere in the world, with permanent theatres and lyric companies such as the Teatro La Fenice of Venice, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden of London, the Teatro alla Scala of Milan, the Arena of Verona, the Ater, the Ert, the Teatro all’Opera of Rome, the Teatro Regio of Turin and the Piccolo Teatro of Milan.
Managed by the artistic director Diego Maj, the theatre is composed of various realities. The Company, with its artistic managers Fabrizio Montecchi and Nicoletta Garioni, is involved in the production of plays as well as in laboratory activities for schools and children. The workshop Officina delle Ombre hosts the productions and the research by Teatro Gioco Vita. The theatres in Piacenza (Teatro Filodrammatici, Teatro Municipale and Teatro Gioia) are a big house where to experiment and share theatrical reviews, hospitality, cultural exchanges, places where to achieve artistic and cultural projects for the company’s research and the work in place. Teatro Gioco Vita combines its activity in Piacenza and the province (artistic and organizing direction of the Stagione di Prosa from the Teatro Municipale of Piacenza, organization of theatrical reviews and other cultural events, hospitality, workshops, and training) to an increasingly international dimension that led its shadow theatre shows to be performed in Europe, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Japan, China, Israel, Taiwan, Turkey, Jordan and Senegal.
