Les mêmes

The narrative landscape entrusted by the artistic direction to the director is the concept of the “door,” of “carrying,” of giving birth. This is meant to bring the show closer to the Christmas context, without however stumbling into the commercial clichés of the season.The project was initially imagined as a proposal for a “winter circus.” However, it was later decided that the production effort should generate a show capable of being staged even beyond the winter months. The “door,” therefore, becomes a symbol of passage, a pretext to reflect on the human relationship with emotions and the metaphysical sphere.From this will emerge a dreamlike performance, with decisive accents of acrobatic spectacle, able to speak both to an educated, prepared audience and to children and families. This latter feature—crucial for the circus—will allow the presentation of an artistically innovative show without compromising accessibility for younger generations or those less accustomed to attending performing arts.

In a rarefied universe, suspended between the absurd and the poetic, four figures inhabit an unstable space built around an architectural enigma: the door.On stage: four doors leading nowhere, chairs rebelling against their function, wheelbarrows turned into furniture, and shadows knocking on emptiness. Gli stessi (The Same Ones) is a scenic journey through the paradoxical geometry of dwelling.The “door” divides, unites, transforms; it is access and escape, inside and outside, threshold and refuge. Space is born around this passage: it is there that everything begins, fractures, and recomposes. The protagonists—identical, repeated, mirrored—always act together, moved by a collective logic that cracks when unity breaks.Everyday gestures become choreographic rituals: the cigarette, the umbrella, the circus balance transform into shared languages, disturbed by objects that seem to burst onto the stage from an unknowable elsewhere.Built as a visual universe suspended between magical realism and surreal tension, the show plays on contrasts: form and sound, symmetry and disorder, inside and outside. Music deceives, lights mislead, shadows tell what cannot be said.Gli stessi is born as a choral, dreamlike work on coexistence, repetition, and limits.

The characters always act together, yet each possesses a single traditional circus prop—a sphere, a ball, a club—to be integrated into the shared scene. No one performs alone; everything is collective. Even the balance of a circus act must bend to the presence of the group. The chair, for example, may become a constraint or a performative bond for one of them.Costumes define the universe with a precise, cohesive choice anchoring the aesthetics to a specific imagery (perhaps post-Soviet, vintage, or “Georgian magical realism”? The implicit and never-explicit reference is to Georgian film director Otar Iosseliani and his feature film April).The music, on the other hand, breaks this imagery, creating a contrast that destabilizes the audience’s expectations. Shadows, lights, and video mapping amplify the tension between interior and exterior: projected hands knock, open doors, and create evanescent presences inhabiting the scenic and mental space.The show is a metaphorical reflection on collective identity, on the meaning of dwelling, on the boundaries between what is inside and what is other. Between the everyday gesture and the performative action, the aim is to generate a stage dance inhabited by objects and symbols that speak, play, disturb—in a social context where the other and the door tend to disappear, swallowed by the portals of repetition and conformity.

artistic direction Davide Perissutti
dramaturgical concept Davide Perissutti and Roberto Magro
direction Roberto Magro
imagery creation Petr Forman
performers Alessandro Maida, Davide Visintini, Giorgio Bertolotti, Tommaso Panagrosso
project management Francesco Rossi
original music Simon Thierré
choreography Erika Bettin
set design Andrea Avoledo and Paolo Tonezzer
visual effects Natalie Monforoy
costumes Elettra Del Mistro
logistics Marta Savorgnan
stage photography Lucrezia Ficetti

A production by Circo all’inCirca in collaboration with Cooperativa Puntozero, with the support of Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia and the Municipality of Udine, in partnership with Fondazione Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine, Minicipality of Udine, Simularte and FLIC circus school.