IVAN STEFANUTTI

Every so often an assortment of blithe characters flit across the screen or tread the boards, such as a pierrot lunaire or someone like Jean-Louis Barrault’s mimo in Les Enfants Du Paradis: characters that have descended from the moon either simply to take a look around or to exert their own enigmatic power on that spectacular metaphor suspended between earth and sky that is theatre. They are theatre people in the flesh, artists who habitually breathe the odour and the dust of the stage, but have not yet depleted (and perhaps they never will) that sense of wonder for the “grand magic”. These makers of magic, despite their aplomb – more lunar than british in nature – have kept intact their pleasure in being a living part of theatre as if it were not merely the place where they practice their profession but more an intrinsic part of their very existence. When I first met Ivan Stefanutti in person and saw how he worked, he gave me the impression of being the reincarnation of a character in free-fall from the lighting grid, a sort of young red-haired musketeer, a D’Artagnan’s love child who, with the air of one rather lost in thought (minus the imperious hubris, the intemperance of some of his scenographer colleagues), would move to and fro from the workshop to the costume shop, from the lighting console to the wings, among singers, extras and prop men. (Testo di Gianni Gori from “Ivan Stefanutti: a highly dynamic figure” The Scenographer 2016