FRIDAY, OCT 24, 2014
LIFE WEEKEND ‘Icaro’ invites the dreamer to soar The circus theater show based on Greek myth comes to Irvine ANDREA LOPEZ
Daniele Fizni Pasca has performed “Icaro” in six languages across Europe and the American. The Irvine Performance Saturday will be its U.S. premiere.
BY AMERICA HERNANDEZ STAFF WRITER
“Icaro,” a circus theater show about the mythic figure Icarus who donned wax-and-feather wings and flew toward the sun, will arrive for a one-weekend performance to the Irvine Bar-
clay theatre beginning Saturday. The piece has been performed more than 700 times in six languages all over the globe – but never before in the United States. Writer, director and performer Daniele Finzi Pasca, who hails from the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, in-
Elements of Italian clown tradition are part of “Icaro,” an adaptation of the Icarus myth that, contrary to some interretations, encourage people to take the risks of flying high.
fuses the classic myth with elements of Italian clown tradition, alternating extreme joy and sadness to portray the memorable son who dared to soar through the sky with abandon. “The essence of the myth is absolutely there,” said Finzi Pasca. “This is a story dedicated to freedom and the power of the dream.” In the Greek tale, Daedalus and his son Icarus are trapped as prisoners in an elaborate labyrinth on the island of Crete. Devising a way out, Daedalus crafts waxand-feather wings for the two of them to escape the maze and fly to Sicily. The theme of escape from imprisonment partly inspired Finzi Pasca to reinterpret the myth. He was serving a short prison sentence himself when he wrote “Icaro” more than 20 years ago. His crime? Refusing to participate in Switzerland’s mandatory military service. Though the story might conjure up images of a tragedy in togas, Finzi Pasca’s “Icaro” flips the cautionary tale of not flying too close to the sun on its head – en-
‘Icaro’ Where: Irvine Barclay Theatre 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine When:8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday How much: $20-$40 Call: 949-854-4646 Online: thebarclay.org
couraging audiences to dream big and have faith that bad situations can be overcome. “There are different versions of the myth, and in the Greek tradition we never see Icaro falling, we just suspect so,” Finzi Pasca explained. “It says Icaro disappears (into the sky) and his father later finds a feather floating on top of the sea.” That ambiguity, according to Finzi Pasca, leads to a hopeful possibility: perhaps Icarus wanted to fly much higher and farther, to be far from his father and escape somewhere to find his own dream. Rather than aiming to keep a level head – flying neither too high nor too low, avoiding extremes and thus staying safe – “maybe we should dream much more than everybody tells us we should,” Finzi Pasca said.
In addition to this mystery ending, “Icaro” also modernizes the myth, placing it in an unlikely setting: a hospital ward. Onstage, the father/ son dynamic is represented instead by a longtime hospital patient who takes a new arrival under his wing. Helping his protege navigate the labyrinth of illness, and performing some entertaining tricks along the way, the hospital veteran keeps Icaro’s spirits up and instills in him the power to believe in a future escape. The message of “Icaro” as a dreamer is simple but powerful, and has resonated with audiences the world over, from Uruguay to Japan, in German, Italian or French, Finzi Pasca said. “Dreams are a strange material, they’re something we use to explain things to ourselves during the night, there are images that appear and maybe explain our (inner) self and our vision of life, and there are also dreams that push us to find new challenges,” the director said. In his eyes, we are all Icaro – a concept he pushes to the limit by
performing the piece with an audience member chosen at random for each performance. Finzi Pasca becomes the guide, draping the audience member in feathers to learn to fly; performing gymnastic tricks with him or her, and imparting advice that transcends the play to enter real life. “When learning to fly, the wind will help you, and after that it’s a question of intuition,” his character says to the audience member playing Icaro. “Intuition is stronger than dreams and more important. ... Can you feel the wind?” That simplicity and universality are part of why Finzi Pasca performs the work year after year between his larger projects, one of which was directing the closing ceremony for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. “We all are a little bit afraid of the dark, we all dream, we all fall in love, we all will fight for an idea,” he mused on the themes of his play. “This is the poesy for me.” Contact the writer: ahernandez@ocregister.com