Per una scena "minore". Le radici contemporanee del teatro breve (2000-2014)

In experimental Italian theatre, brevity is not merely an expressive dimension of scenic creation, but a forma mentis, a conceptual vocation of young companies. In fact, the 2010s are producing in Italy a minor stage, first of all because of the reduced stage size and second of all because of the shortness of the produced works which tend towards installation pieces or stage devices. Moving from the linguistic disintegration brought on by historical avant-gardes during the twentieth century, this theatre is especially inspired by visual arts, even though its historical roots rest in small pieces and in the synthetic language of modern dance and Futurist Varietà attractions. Moving towards a progressive literalization of the representation, short forms actually become a tool for crossing artistic genres and languages, almost transforming into a format, that is, an expressive standard of increasingly spurious, hybridized, and open events. Starting from Deleuze’s and Guattari’s philosophical concept of minor literature, this paper explores and analyses different short creations realized by Italian contemporary companies, such as gruppo nanou, Città di Ebla, Anagoor, Opera, ErosAntEros, Teatro Sotterraneo. These groups are all representative of what will be styled as “installed or installation theatre”. Through installation and device structures, this new theatrical wave trespasses the boundaries and specificities of artistic language leading to the deterritorialization of theatre itself and rethinking the artistic work as well as its relationship with the audience.