Edition 2019 – L’altra faccia della Luna ( The other side of the moon)

Thirty-six years after the first edition of the “La Macchina dei Sogni” festival, we feel the urgent need to reclaim memory. In a historical moment like ours, marked by profound changes, where everything seems to hang by a thread and where aggression and fear are perceived everywhere, on the streets as well as on social media and in politics, we, as Pirandello would have said, “remain here all to arrange the rehearsal.”

Like Cotrone and the Scalognati, masters of nothing and everything, we take refuge in fantasy, poetry, and dreams, trying to make “dreams, music, prayer, and love come true even in wakefulness.”

More than 500 years have passed since the birth of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and the poem appears more relevant than ever. In the cantos that compose it, madness and wandering are two metaphors for the world. We want to entrust Astolfo and his Hippogriff with the task of returning to the Moon to bring back not only the sanity of the paladin Orlando but also our own, lost in the whirlpool of contemporary nihilism.

Someone might wonder: “But man really landed on the Moon, and there wasn’t a trace of any vials.” That’s true! Because everything is kept on the “dark side of the Moon,” which the astronauts, not being poets, could not reach.

Associazione Figli d’Arte Cuticchio

It’s not enough to look;
you must look with eyes that want to see,
that believe in what they see.

Galileo Galilei

Choosing the theme for this 36th edition of “La Macchina dei Sogni” was not easy: so many anniversaries to celebrate, each one more significant than the last. 500 years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci, a universal genius of the Renaissance; 50 years since man set foot on the Moon; 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Moreover, we strongly felt the need to address a dramatic and unfortunately current issue: femicide. The systematic violence of men against women is scandalous and abnormal, a true insult to the vital principle, an evil wave that is overwhelming us and that civil society and institutions should resolutely stop, working preventively on people’s consciences.

In short, deciding was very difficult, but once again, it was my puppets that came to my aid, reminding me that Ariosto, 500 years ago, had taken the paladin Astolfo to the Moon precisely to recover Orlando’s sanity and “all that each man loses.” Choosing the theme of the moon landing, therefore, means for me including all the aforementioned themes in this choice.

The Moon described by Ariosto is a planet mirroring Earth, with other lakes, other rivers, other fields, where, unlike our planet, which now only harbors madness, all rationality is preserved. Today we know for certain that there is no life on the Moon; we have known this since the night of June 20, 1969, when, overcoming gravity, Neil Armstrong uttered the famous phrase, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Artists, writers, and poets of every nationality have described and depicted the Moon; among them, we cannot forget Galileo Galilei. Scientist, painter, writer, and passionate reader of Ariosto’s verses, Galileo, that night he directed the telescope toward the Moon, probably recognized the same celestial body described almost a century earlier by his favorite poet and translated it into a drawing: thus was born a Moon with a surface very similar to that of the Earth, with mountains and valleys. In the wonder of the discovery, Galileo took on the mission that once belonged to the paladin Astolfo. The new telescope constituted the first deep look into the universe, a true turning point destined to forever change the way we conceive the reality in which we live.

We too will look at the Moon with the poet’s eyes: we will see it rise at Palazzo Riso, ascend over Palazzo D’Aumale, and finally reach my small Puppet Theater, where Astolfo will help us to wisely understand the virtues and flaws of humanity.

Mimmo Cuticchio
Artistic Director