CIAK SI GIRA – Teatro Verdi
By Joey Parkin (California State University)
Be careful not to blink! The world’s fastest quick-change artist (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) is coming to Florence, and you won’t want to miss a moment!
Arturo Brachetti, Italian actor, director, illusionist and quick-change artist has performed all over the world, including a guest star appearance on the Drew Carry Show. Much like the original Man of 1000 Faces, Lon Cheney, Brachetti will astound audiences in his new one-man-show “Ciak Si Gira!” with some of the best roles in his repertoire.
“Ciak Si Gira!”, or “Rolling and…Action!” will take the audience on a journey through film, in a unique style of interpretive theater that combines the use of a large screen and special effects with the live performance. The show begins with television, where Brachetti will go through a series of quick costume changes featuring characters such as Zorro, Mary Poppins, Cruella De Vil, cowboys and pirates. Next, Brachetti will act out mock-fantasy encounters between different popular characters from the horror genre, such as the priest from the “Exorcist” and Nosferatu. Finishing off the first half of the show, some famous cinema celebrities will be featured, like Baby Jane and the late, great Lon Cheney himself, who pioneered the art of actors using facial makeup in cinema and who created such iconic film characters as the Elephant Man, the Phantom of the Opera and Quasimodo. The second half of the show will be dedicated to Brachetti’s interpretations of some Hollywood greats. Expect to see anything or anyone, including Charlie Chaplin, King Kong, Liza Minelli, Gollum, Harry Potter, ET and Darth Vader.
As you might have discovered, in this show, Brachetti will relive for audiences the greatest moments in film in a new and exciting way. It promises to be an extremely entertaining way to truly experience the best that cinema, theater, and one very talented performer has to offer.
“Ciak Si Gira!” performed by Arturo Brachetti and directed by Serge Denoncourt opens at Teatro Verdi November 15th and runs until November 20th at 8:45pm and 4:45pm on Sunday.
As I sat waiting in the beautiful Teatro Verdi, listening to the locals around me chit-chatting, I wasn’t sure what to expect once the curtain rose. But when the lights finally dimmed, any expectations I might have had were completely blown away. Never in my entire life have I ever seen a performance so unique, innovative and entertaining as Aturo Brachetti’s “Ciak Si Gira!” While Brachetti might have the reputation as the world’s fastest quick-change artist, his show was so much more than that.
The main theme of the show was cinema, so of course much of the performance focused on that. My absolutely favorite part of the show was in the second half of the show, where Brachetti transformed into iconic characters from some of Hollywood’s best movies. Some of the highlights were Snow White, Harry Potter, Jaws, Nemo, Darth Vader, Liza Minelli from the Cabernet, Captain Jack Sparrow, Gene Kelley from Singing in the Rain, and Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman from Casablanca. One of the aspects that made this show so spectacular was the humor of it all. My favorite example would be Snow White. As music from the classic Disney movie played, Snow White waited for her prince. We hear the pounding of two different prince’s horses pass by, and on the third horse Snow White lifts her skirt. Upon which we immediately hear the horse come to a screeching halt. I thought the entire audience might die of laughter, myself included.
Not only was the show hilarious, it was extremely inventive. The entire staging of the show was brilliant, from the lighting, sound effects, constantly changing and in motion scenery as well as Brachetti’s costumes. Which, by the way, were not simple. Each costume change took less than four seconds (I counted), occurred on stage in front of the audience, and was surprisingly complete. Along with his impressive costume changes, Brachetti included into his performance video montages (including a look into the life of Lon Cheney), mimicking actions to sound effects, slight of hand magic tricks, a series of creative shadow puppets, and 25 different personalities with only one ring of cloth that he used as a hat.
This performance was worth the wait, and more than worth the price of admission. I spent the next day raving about this performance to all of my roommates and anyone else who would listen to me how incredible it truly was. Not only do I highly recommend this show to anyone who wants to spend two hours being thoroughly entertained, I guarantee your life will in fact be enriched by this unique experience. I know mine was.