<I>Theatre on a Line</I> di Cuocolo/Bosetti. Il teatro al telefono al tempo della pandemia: una conversazione con Renato Cuocolo

Abstract

The article focuses on how several Italian theatrical institutions reacted to the covid-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown in the early stage of the health crisis. The perspective is the production of Theatre on a Line, a 2011 performance by Cuocolo/Bosetti that was widely reprised in the spring-summer 2020. Entirely built on a conversation between the actress Roberta Bosetti and a single spectator, the performance delves into fears through the intimacy of the telephone. Ten years after its debut, one of the most extreme and less reprised productions of the Italo-Australian company takes on a new meaning and becomes a ready-to-use tool for facing a season of crisis. The article reconstructs the relationship between theatre and telephone from an historical perspective and then focuses on a conversation with the playwright Renato Cuocolo and the director of Teatro della Tosse, Amedeo Romeo.

Keywords

• theatre on a line
• cuocolo
• bosetti
• telephone performance