Ricordi
Doppio Teatro
Lion Theatre

As their name suggests, Doppio Teatro (Dual Theatre) is a bilingual theatre company with a single-minded commitment to the promotion and celebration of ltalo-Australian culture. Since its inception in 1983, Doppio has staged productions for the Festival Fringe, Piccolo Spoleto and Come Out as well as schools and Italian clubs in the metropolitan. area and regional centres.

Under the guidance of artistic directors, Christopher Bell and Teresa Crea, Doppio Teatro has, with productions such as Un Pugno di Terra and La Madonna Emigrante, established a strong following both from regular theatre audiences and members of the Italian community. That admiration can only. Increase with Teresa Crea’s latest work Ricordi (Memories), a three-hander which recollects in passion and tranquility the mixed experiences of a succession of Italian women, some who migrated to Australia, and some, their descendents · born here but raised in Neapolitan and Calabrian traditions.

This kind of theatre of witness is scarcely novel, and while we have all at some stage seen those well-intentioned grab- bag productions of skits, monologues and songs which are the hallmarks of small theatre with Large Concerns, Ricordi isn’t one of them, Teresa Crea has assembled. An intelligent and resonant cluster of narratives which are accessible and uncompromising. Much of the text is performed in dialect, but because the shifts from English to ltalian are well-judged dramatically, there is, as often happens watching theatre in an unfamiliar language, an almost inexplicable richness and intimacy.

With sparsely elegant staging, Crea has achieved a fluency and shading that is a delight to watch. Three bentwood chairs, black screens and a genuine Calabrian dowry chest are all actors Josie Composto-Eberhard, Lucia Mastrantone and Antonietta Morgillo need to conjure up a pageant of vivid portraits of the past and present. In one vignette, Gilda recounts the tragic death of her infant brother in the slums of Naples. In another, Irene languishes in an unhappy marriage. A tarantella cuts forward to a disco trio and Lucia Mastrantone sparkles as Viviana, a young hairdresser disdaining the spiral perms and burgundy rinses at the local nightclub. She then returns as Filomena, a migrant wife calling to a neighbour from the washing line. Her· husband has lost his urge she laments,so she distracts herself by learning English from television. Ricordi focuses on marriage as a central motif. Josie Composto-Eberhard’s Angie targets the cupiditous banality of arriviste matrimony while guests at a wedding retreat into reveries of lost romance and companionship. It is touchingly done, never sentimental. The music is a high point. Not only Linsey Pollak’s soundtrack but the three performers singing a seriesof songs selected mainly from the Campania region near Naples. The movement and mime coached by.Michael Fuller and Chris Willems is also creditable.·

Perhaps the only uncertain note occurs in the final speech from Antonietta Morgillo as Anna, an earnest young film-maker belatedly exploring her heritage. This is followed by a self- conscious final song, Searching For a Voice, which seems to defy any but a tentative performance. .In context, however, these are mere blemishes. Thoughtfully lit, wittily costumed, generously performed and lucidly directed, Doppio Teatro’s Ricordi is memorable theatre that richly deserves a wide audience.

“Memorable” The Adelaide Review, No.62, April, 1989, p.23.