Theater Time?

As Franz Liszt said, “a theatre receives recognition through its initiative.”  To produce an operetta is a formidable task anywhere, but to pull it off in Ribeira requires an almost superhuman dose of initiative.  Fortunately, no one loves impossible challenges like Pietro Gallina, who, the moment he met Silvia Stoppani, our Italian volunteer pianist, saw an opportunity and got to work, choosing a popular Brazilian musical, O Dragão verde, and re-working it both to fit the abilities of the ICBIE theater group and to represent the contemporary realities of our neighborhood.   For days, he labored with Silvia and Meg, re-writing the whole work, transforming the dragon into a crack dealer and rechristening the work as Cidade em perigo, ou o traficante Dragão preto (“City in Danger, or the Black Dragon Dealer”).  At the same time, we discovered that the musical score was impossible to find, so Roy Zimmerman spent a week transcribing the music by ear from old recordings, making piano and voice arrangements, while the entire ICBIE team was assigned specific tasks.  Meg and Romário, as assistant directors, blocked out the scenes; Richard began working on the sets and Bigod was assigned the art work; Raquel, Meg and Camila are responsible for make-up; Fábio is the sound engineer and photographer; Andrea will man the lights; Vanessa and Marcella will work on publicity and promotion; our friends from Bottega Buffa CircoVacante will animate a scene in the play; and above all, Ivanildo will be the Black Dragon.  After four weeks of rehearsals (that have kept Silvia and Pietro very busy, using both carrot and stick), it’s nearly time for the big debut, scheduled for this Thursday.  There are still a million loose ends and everyone is frantic, so there’s nothing to do but say “break a leg!”  As Massimo Troisi would say, “Comunque vada sarà un successo!”