By Matt Trueman 6:10PM BST 20 Jun 2013 It s well acted too: Georgia Groome, 21, catches the confused inflections of a five-year-old boy; Laura Donnelly is lyrically tender as his mother. by Eleanor MacFarlane 20th June 2013 This is theatre better experienced without knowing too much beforehand, approached in all ways in the dark as the small world it creates gets smaller and more claustrophobic, and events are revealed purely through sound. The audience is led into the space by ushers, and taken to seats already plunged in darkness. We never see the cast, and their images do not even appear in the programme. A mother and her son play out an extraordinary drama in a small flat, the only visitors a boorish boyfriend and phone calls from the son s grandmother and teacher. The boy is really too young to know much of what is going on around him, and reacts as a child when events sink out of control. Tutto Bene,Mamma? translates as Is everything going to be alright, Mummy? and it s not giving away too much to say that, no, everything is not going to be alright. The darkness becomes more relevant to the plot as the play continues, almost becoming an extra character. As the cast refer to the dark, it is suggested that it is not the blackout itself that is frightening, but what people may do within it. Other metaphors in the play are revealed through the young boy s understanding, and it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to witness this ruination of a soul.
The setting of Naples is suggested outside the theatre space, with the entrance from the street draped in washing hanging from the ceiling, and upstairs in the gallery are photographs of the city. We don t see the tourist version, but the more down-at-heel, crowded, apartments-on-top-of-each-other Naples, which we also hear in the background throughout most of the play, making the isolation of the drama more extraordinary by contrast. This is an adaptation into English by April de Angelis from the Italian play by Gloria Mina, and a UK premiere. The cast have to convey a range of subtlety and emotion in their voices alone, and the part of the boy is played with such authentic skill that it may haunt for a long time. If you like theatre to challenge your senses you will find this to be a memorable and worthwhile ordeal. Verdict: by Nicholas Hamilton Published Thursday 20 June 2013 at 10:50 Relying solely on their voices and the noises they make as they move around the stage, Laura Donnelly, Georgia Groome and Phil Wright are excellent as the unnamed woman, boy and man, respectively. Benny Nilsen s sound design takes full advantage of the element of surprise created by the dark stage to bring to life the tumultuous relationship between the adults. Tutto Bene, Mamma? succeeds in making the audience squirm,!
by Sophia Rubiec June 23, 2013 After reading about Tutto Bene Mamma, a play set in the dark, I was determined to see it. I was surprised to discover the Print Room theatre sitting inconspicuously down a residential road in Notting Hill. A small hole in the wall which was once an old 1950s warehouse was now the venue for the innovative play set totally in the dark. Even the stewards met me with a look of wonder and appreciation that I was even there when I handed over the fairly pricey tickets for a one hour play. I waited in the rose garden until a lady with a French accent appeared from behind a door, told me to hold onto her arms as she led me inch by inch into the pitch black auditorium. My only solace was the fact I had just met the girl to my left outside the theatre and to my right was my sister so I didn t feel so alone; I recognised their voices and knew I was in familiar company. The only light in the room was a red, circular LED light, which I suspected might have been a night vision camera. I had no idea what shape the room was, how many audience members there were, or if the actors were in the room watching us the whole time. The play, adapted by April De Angelis, tells the true story of a mother and son in an appartement block in Naples. But apart from the faint sound of Italian TV in the opening scene, the characters names, and the constant sound of Vespas, there was no real link to Italy they could have been anywhere. In fact all three characters spoke in different British accents, Irish, English and East End of London which at first was quite difficult to get used to.
However as the play gained momentum and my eyes became accustomed to sitting in the dark the play became alive, and I could see the action as if it was lit up in flood lights. The loss of vision enhanced my other senses and I could picture the set vividly, the long sofa, the wooden shutter windows, the gas cooker. This is mainly to the credit of the actors mum, Laura Donnelly, boyfriend, Phil Wright and Georgia Groome, who played a convincing 8-year-old boy. The use of smell was effective burnt cake, pizza and lavender wafted through the room at different intervals. In all, and at the risk of not spoiling the plot for others, it was a moving piece of theatre which became even more moving through the fact it was set in the dark. My imagination, indeed everyone s imaginations, created their own individual play. We became the set designers, the costume pickers and the casting directors. A thoughtful piece of theatre. by Melahirkan Kecerdasan Wednesday, 06/19/2013-13:58 LONDON, (PRLM).- Sebuah drama yang dipentaskan di kegelapan total dimulai di Inggris pekan ini. Para penonton memasuki ruang tanpa cahaya. Para pemain pun tidak terlihat. Petugas teater mengenakan kacamata khusus. Tutto Bene, Mamma?, drama satu babak yang diadaptasi oleh April de Angelis, menceritakan kisah seorang ibu dan anak lelaki kecilnya di sebuah apartemen di kota Napoli, Italia. Pengalaman itu bertempat di The Print Room, sebuah teater di London barat. Saat jeda gladi bersih, sutradara Ewan Marshall mengakui ia khawatir bahwa tidak akan ada aktor yang tertarik dalam proyek tersebut. "Para aktor anonim,
kami tidak punya foto di buku acara dan tidak ada panggilan untuk kembali ke panggung," ujarnya. Alasannya adalah kegelapan menutupi plot cerdas dari pementasan itu. Sejak hari pertama latihan para pemain, yang terdiri dari para aktor teater kawakan, mengenakan penutup mata. Mereka bergerak di set dengan bantuan furnitur dan alur kain yang ditempel ke lantai. Tetapi bagaimana dengan para penonton? "Mereka duduk di kegelapan sejak awal. Mereka diantar ke kursi oleh petugas dengan bantuan obor. Jika ada orang yang panik, mereka akan dibawa keluar oleh petugas, yang mengenakan kacamata khusus dan bisa melihat apa yang terjadi," kata Marshall Tutto Bene, Mamma? (Tidak Apa-Apa Bukan, Bu?), karya Gloria Mina, sangat populer saat pertama dipentaskan di Milan. (bbc/a-147) Photo: Ellie Kurttz
by Robert Cumber 06/27/2013 THERE'S not a chink of light as I'm guided uncertainly into the theatre by the hands of an usher. But the darkness has only began to descend, as for the next 50 minutes we're subjected to an emotional barrage of domestic abuse, murder and child abandonment. I'm one of about 20 people sat in the pitch black, unable even to see my own hands, inside Notting Hill's Print Room for tonight's performance of Tutto Bene, Mamma? The action takes place entirely in darkness in Gloria Mina's unsettling psychological drama, adapted by April de Angelis, with the lights only coming on once the proverbial curtains have fallen. 'Don't worry, we're watching you throughout,' says the usher somewhat disconcertingly as he leads us into the blackened auditorium. by Sara Fielding 20/06/2013 Tutto Bene, Mamma? is a story about a single woman and her son, performed by the cast and experienced by the audience entirely in the dark. It was a new experience and one that, I have to admit, was a little intimidating prior to entering the theatre. The audience was led in small groups to sit and wait for
the play to start in a completely dark space. As one of the first to be ushered in, it took a while for everyone to be seated, but it allowed time to adjust to the surroundings. The play started at the sound of a ship's horn, and suddenly the sounds of a busy street transported us to the city of Naples. By limiting the audiences' use of their sense of sight and making them rely on what they heard and smelt different smells were injected at certain times (burning cakes, pizza) the production tinkered with the powers of suggestion and forced us to use our imagination, which created a much more powerful allround experience than using the gift of sight. In fact, according to playwright Gloria Mina, she was inspired to write the play by a blind theatre group in her native city, Buenos Aires. It was like listening to a radio play in the dark, which felt surprisingly comforting as you forgot that there was an audience around you. To start, the play seemed quite innocuous, with a simple story line about the difficulties of life for a single woman, reliant on others for her income as she tries to bring up her son. In the first twenty minutes, I was left wondering why the decision was made to set the play in darkness. However, there is a clear, pivotal moment when it becomes very clear why: what transpires in the second half of the play would have been very difficult to stage under lights in a believable way. I won't say what it is, as I will spoil the story suffice to say, the darkness made it much easier to portray the passage of time. The sense of time passing was also developed through the script by getting the actors to mention actions or describe what they were "seeing", which could only have occurred across a number of days. As would be expected, a lot of effort has been made to bring together the sound effects. Sound designer Benny Nilsen actually went to Naples to record the street sounds, and his commitment has paid off, as you really believed you were in an apartment in an Italian city, although it I think the looped recording could have been a little longer as I started to recognise the beginning and the end. I also liked the use of machine noises to denote a change of scene, and the ship's horn that signalled the beginning and the end of the play. The sounds made the performance and brought the whole play together, creating suggestions and impressing visuals on my imagination. In particular, one scene with a swarm of flies was so realistic I ducked in my seat! The
recording of chattering squirrels was deliberately unnerving, especially as it added to the climax of events as the play came to a close. While the original play was based in an isolated house in Memphis, Tennessee, the decision to base it in Naples was made to capture the essence of the country and language in which the play was originally written. That said, I am not sure the director's decision to keep the actors' original accents was right (London and Ireland). More could have been made of the fiery Italian temperament, which would have added a bit of "oomph" and intrigue to the basic story. As it was, the tone of the players was a little flat at times, and I didn't think the spoken word was working as hard as the accompanying recorded sounds. Laura Donnelly played the woman, Georgia Groome the boy and Philip Wright the man, with Beatie Edney provising the voiceover for the grandmother. We did not see the actors and they did not come out to allow the audience to acknowledge them at the end, which felt weird, but I guess it would have spoilt the overall effect. All in all, the play is a simple if tragic story, powerfully told in an unusual way. It is also worth going to see just for the experience of "blackout theatre". by Adam Penny 25/06/2013 At the risk of sounding somewhat cliché: this is theatre like you ve never seen theatre before. But that s because you don t see any of it, not a single bit. Fresh from a sell-out run in Milan, this production arrives at the chic fringe theatre, The Print Room, leaving behind theatrical conventions and the stage lights.
This is very much a collaborative achievement and arguably so more than most cases of theatrical feat. It s a heartbreaking story of a young boy who finds himself suddenly alone in the house with his dead mother, whom he s innocently convinced is just sleeping. With an aggressive man, also the male interest on the outskirts of the play and an intrusive mother constantly on the other end of the phone, we re reduced to tears regularly and often find ourselves flinching at things that, for all we know, might not even be there. As the story develops, we build up our individual ideas of what they, the people, and the house they re in, look like. Benny Nilsen has tremendous proficiencies by way of sound design and effectively assists the immersive nature of this English adaptation by April De Angelis. It makes a world of difference, too; combined with intelligent direction from Ewan Marshall, who clearly bore his audience in the forefront of his mind, this production is often as startling and disconcerting, as it is totally heart wrenching. There s something especially meaningful, almost life changing but also, downright creepy about the fact that we never meet the cast. Providing you don t know them by name, it could quite literally be anyone: this takes a demonstrative effect on the way you look at by passers, and in particular children, on the street upon your leaving the venue so just be conscious about that. Crucially, this collaborative achievement is an astounding one; a mustexperience production; another in the ever-growing trail of those putting The Print Room right in the pulsing heart of the metaphorical theatrical map.
BBC NEws 2013