From Hell to Heterotopia: Romeo Castellucci’s Inferno

Abstract

From the narratives on the Underworld in Homer and Ancient Tragedy to the Christian distinction between Heaven and Hell, the concept of the place of the dead went through major reconfigurations. Enlightenment and modernism brought forth the need for knowledge and scientific explanation. According to Jacques Derrida, death is in itself impossible: humans can perhaps perish (périr), but they cannot die (mourir). Emmanuel Levinas presents death as the ultimate separation of the self from historical time, the liberation of personal existence from the conventional perception of history. The beyond takes shape according to contemporary perceptions of death and the work of mourning: each era builds its own heterotopia of the dead, and theatre is where this can be best presented. The vertical axis of ancient Greek thought that connects humans to the transcendental was gradually replaced by a horizontal perspective: hell resembles everyday life. The question of representation has always intrigued theatre practitioners, especially when it comes to uncanny - as per Freud - matters. Romeo Castellucci has always been innovative, rejecting conventions, including illusion. Dante’s Commedia Divina is the trace – according to Benjamin - upon which Castellucci develops Inferno; he transposes the rings of hell to contemporary society, where anonymity and the anxiety to belong prevail. Through the analysis of the most striking episodes from the performance, I am exploring his aesthetics and his practice as he re-constructs a heterotopia on stage with human experience at its centre.

Notes

1 Trilogy Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, loosely inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy, by Romeo Castellucci (associate artist) / Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Cour d’honneur du Palais des papes, Festival d’Avignon, France, July 2008.

2 Trilogy Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, loosely inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy, by Romeo Castellucci / Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Peiraios 260, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Greece, July 2009.

3 The inversion of this process leads to making something familiar feel strange and threatening, the uncanny as per Freud.

4 This refers to the additional qualities that sometimes include foreseeing the future, functioning as oracle- tellers or interpreting omens, which links with Derrida’s concept that the ‘revenants’ return from the future, that death is always ahead.

5 In the trilogy Oresteia by Aeschylus (1999 [458]), Clytemnestra murders her husband, King Agamemnon, upon his triumphant return from the Trojan War. She is then murdered by her own son, Orestes, who avenges the death of his father. Feeling that her death was unjust, her spirit evokes the vengeful powers of the Furies, the ancient deities of the Underworld that demand an eye for an eye and who would not stop hounding a man who has insulted them.

6 Christianism is used here in distinction to Christianity to highlight the political agenda that underlie the plans and actions of various individuals or groups in positions of power in the guise of a religious cause.

7 For an insightful analysis of heterotopias in theatre, see Pefanis ‘On stages and heterotopias: A Foucauldian reading of the stage’ (2013b: 119–52).

8 Nékyia is the rite performed invoking and questioning dead spirits; in the eleventh rhapsody of the Homeric Odyssey, also known as nékyia, Ulysses enters the Underworld of Hades in order to speak to his dead mother; he meets dead heroes, such as Achilles, former warriors, such as Elpinor, and the oracle- teller Kalchas.

9 Hell-mouth (or Hellmouth) is a stage device in the shape of a monster’s head emitting flames, smoke and tumult, representing the gates of Hell in Medieval drama. Castellucci uses the phrase ‘going into a hell mouth’ evoking a double imagery for both walking through the gates of hell and the theatrical artefact.

10 For an extended analysis of animals in SRS’s work, see Pefanis 2018: 337–96; Papalexiou 2009: 54–9; Bouko 2012; and Neofytou-Georgiou 2012: 17.

11 The seven German Shepherds are here and now what the lion, the leopard and the she-wolf were there and then for Dante.

12 Especially in the context of a performance where every agent on stage is meant to be seen per se and where the director has been present as himself, this illusion enlarges all the possible signs attached to this legendary icon.

13 For a comprehensive description of the structure and the presentation of the images in Inferno accompanied with rich photographic material, see Margherita Laera’s analysis (2010: 3–8).

14 This mythical act was frighteningly well- depicted in Goya’s black painting of the same title. ed analysis of animals in formance where every agent on stage is meant to be seen per se and where the director has been ysis (2010: 3–8).