Also known by the title 'The Lower Depths', or 'At the Bottom', or even 'The Dormitory', this great drama by Maksim Gorky, first staged in Moscow in 1902, was renamed 'The Inn of the Poor' by Giorgio Strehler in 1947, on the occasion of the memorable direction that inaugurated the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in May 1947.
It is this last title that Massimo Popolizio has decided to propose to the public, by virtue of its emblematic and poetic value, as well as historical. 'The Inn of the Poor' is a great choral drama, which could be defined as Shakespearean in its wise dosage of pathos, social denunciation, bitter comedy, philosophical and moral reflection on human destiny.
The high number of actors on stage (the multiform population of this sort of dormitory refuge for the lowest of society) imposes on the direction the search for a rhythm suitable for the continuous changing of situations and points of view, in a crescendo of tension made even more evident by the tightness of the evoked space. This refuge of derelicts and alcoholics where the characters spend their days trying not to succumb to despair and the inertia of defeat.
This is a challenge that, after Stanislavsky who was the first director of Gorky's drama, was taken up by great masters of theatrical direction, such as Strehler, and also cinematographic, among others, Resnais and Kurosawa. If great works travel through time to be re-read by each generation from different angles, the directing style of Popolizio, his way of directing the actors and the theatrical mechanism as a whole, appears particularly suitable for writing a new chapter in this history of interpretations.
Our world is not that of 1902, nor that of 1947: the very concept of 'poverty' has also changed, but the dramatic energy, the visionary force, the desperate lucidity of Gorky's characters is still intact, thanks also to the new dramatic writing of Emanuele Trevi.
The show will debut nationally at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on February 9, 2024 and will be on stage until March 3.
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