Devised and performed by: Chiara D’Anna, Juancho Gonzalez, Daniel Rejano Romero, Almundena Segura, Stephanie Thorpe, Tommy Williamson and Anna Zehentbauer
Director Chiara D'Anna
Music and Sound Design: Steve Mason
Lighting Design: Cis O’Boyle
Costume Design: Nadia Malik
At the venue used by the Royal Court’s Theatre Local, this devised site specific performance considers madness in the light of two of its most celebrated portrayals, Don Quixote and Hamlet. At night, Don Quixote arrives in a cemetery with his old horse Rocinante accompanied as ever by Sancho Panza and Donkey. They stumble upon Hamlet’s gravediggers, involved in alchemical experiments as they debate the meanings of life, death and everything in between. But this garden of souls is not all that it appears, and rational laws disappear to make way for something absurd, surreal and grotesque.
Influenced by the dark imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, a cast of seven alternate dynamic physical sequences with intimate poetic moments as the audience enter a world of dreams, memories and visions, embarking on a surreal journey through the restless mind of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Almost exact contemporaries, Cervantes and Shakespeare died in 1616, on the same date (23rd April), if the discrepancy of ten days between the Gregorian calendar (Spain) and Julian calendar (England) is to be allowed for.
Rocinante! Rocinante! was part of Panta Rei’s long-term project on theatre and mental illness. The company has been collaborating since 2010 with Dr Zerrin Atakan from the Institute of Psychiatry and Dr Nick Troop from the Performance Psychology Lab, Hertfordshire University.
Age Guidance: 15+
Running Time: 70 mins (no interval)
Premiered at the The CLF Art Cafe, home of the Royal Court’s Theatre Local in the heart of Peckham, a hub for artists referred to as the “new Montmartre” by The Independent.
