Directing

"As a director I worked at the Edinburgh Festival and on the London fringe, where I have managed to secure a reputation for innovative, challenging and thought provoking work. Often rewriting, adapting and re-inventing major works, or devising new shows. I was touched and influenced by Complicite’s and Joan Littlewood sense of the ensemble; by Grotowski’s and Meisner respect for acting and actors, and Shared Experience and Forced Entertainment physicalised action theatre." - M.M.

By clicking on the flyers you will get to the photo galleries of the various productions.
I have directed many more, but here is a selection of my favourites.


"House of Bernarda Alba"
by Federico Garcia Lorca
- A New adaptation by Massimo Marinoni -

 

When directing a play, I always look at the issues that it raises and what lesson can be derived from it. While mulling over “Bernarda Alba”,
I remembered watching one of this years’ Oscar nominations for best foreign film, a Greek film entitled “Dogtooth”, where a set of parents prohibited their children any contact with the outside world and forced on them their view of life. As a result the children grew up with a twisted take on life, reality, rights, and wrongs. Bernarda rules her house with an iron rod, inflicting her dogma of life on her daughters and prohibiting them any sexual and social urges. All previous productions I have seen concentrate on how hard Bernarda is and how her daughters long for an escape through marriage. I wanted to take it a step further and examine what possible effect a life of denial and indoctrination can have on our children; and how each of the daughters, Bernarda’s mother and even the servants, learn to cope and live everyday under such a strict regime.
In this production we look deep inside their private lives and rooms looking at possibilities, from the extreme to the banal.


"Jeux de Massacre"
by Eugene Ionesco
- A New adaptation by Massimo Marinoni -

 

“There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.” - Eugene Ionesco –

A strange epidemic is taking away the inhabitants of a small town killing an astonishing number of people and the town is transformed from an ordinary provincial suburb into a maelstrom of paranoia, horror, and death.

“Death, drawing ever nearer, exposes all human flaws.” - Eugene Ionesco –

 



The Possibilities
by Howard Barker

"I WAS reminded of the actor’s nightmare (being in an unfamiliar play and not knowing the dialogue) when the principal actor in the final scene of a series of 10 vignettes, written by Howard Barker, pointed a gun at me and fired.

Then the rest of the cast came on stage armed with revolvers and machine guns and commenced shooting at the audience.

Barker has called the audience “the enemy” and I presume he has little time for critics.

Massimo Marinoni uses the whole space of the theatre studio to maximum visual effect."
JOHN COURTNEY O'CONNOR
The Camden New Journal
5 March 2009

Camurria
by Marinoni/Gambino/Tomasini

Commissionata da Mariano D'Amora, direttore artistico della Stagione Teatrale Italiana, è la conclusione di un'iniziativa che ha visto 12 spettacoli di drammaturghi italiani contemporanei succedersi per la prima volta sulle scene del prestigioso Riverside Studio di Londra.La regia di Massimo Marinoni - che già in passato si è distinto a Londra per le sue messe in scena innovative e iconoclaste - spoglia la scena ai suoi minimi termini (una poltrona, un pianoforte, e pochi altri oggetti). Solo le luci sottolineano il contrasto fra i personaggi, contribuendo alla creazione di un'atmosfera espressionistica e suggestiva. L'idea di ridurre al minimo l'espressione verbale "logica" è vincente soprattutto nel contesto di una rassegna dedicata ad un pubblico misto, italiano e inglese. Infatti la purezza comunicativa del gesto e dell'espressione forniscono una chiarezza d'intenti che permette anche a chi non capisce l'italiano di seguire lo spettacolo senza nemmeno avere bisogno di leggere i sovratitoli."
Valentina Chiara-In Scena - August 2008

 

 

Oh, What A Bloody Circus!
by Eugene Ionesco

"Absurdity, alienation, death. In that order. Not wholly unfamiliar territory for a Ionesco play, but what is remarkable about Massimo Marinoni’s take on this paranoid, angst-ridden piece is the way in which he throws you right inside the protagonist’s head. Seated on three sides of a bare black box stage, the audience scrutinise each other as much as the action. With daring, invasive entrances and exits Marinoni creates an energetic, crackly paced, surreal piece with some stunning visual tricks topped by a disturbing coup de theatre finish. Ionesco’s theatre was criticised for having no social relevance, but this play delivers the Donne-like message that no one is an island. Marinoni’s direction draws for the most part good performances his 21-strong cast, although occasionally misjudged acting introduces minor wobbles. Thankfully, they don’t disrupt the piece, which is a valiant, imaginative and ingaging fringe production of this rarely performed play.."
Mark Espiner - Time Out


The Shagaround
by Maggie Nevil

“As far as my directing methods are concerned, I work hard with my actors, constantly trying to stretch their abilities, often beyond their imaginations and expectations. My warm up are arduous and challenging, as I have great aspirations, visions and respect for the art. I have a significant number of followers to this method. I also believe in an organic growth to a performance, not a preset.” – M.M.

 

 

 

The Texas Chainsaw Travelling Horror Picture Show
by BlackmarketX

“I decided to get involved with the Texas Chainsaw (traveling) horror picture show, because it is a group of diverse performers from all walks of life and with various talents, a mixed bag of oddities, but with one big similarity, their unconditional love of art, and their dedication to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone, to be challenged and to challenge themselves in order to rediscover the performer within, and to take active participation in the creation of something new and unique! People with a lot of art in their lives, that understand the need to constantly reinvent themselves in order to feel truly creative and grow to become better people/performers” - M.M.

 

You are Right if you sat so!
by Luigi Pirandello

"There are flashes of real invention in Massimo Marinoni‘s new adaptation of Prandello‘s disturbing comedy of truth and illusion.
The first half advances conventionally enough but things bloom after the interval with performers making use of all the Courtyard Theatre‘s public spaces and Marinoni relocating the drama to a television studio for the play‘s fraught denouement."
The Stage

"Adapted and directed by Massimo Marinoni, the N1 Theatre Company‘s rendition of the drama works pretty well with some amusing up to date adjustments to include audience participation and outtakes from the likes of Jerry Springer and The Trisha Show. It‘s both quirky and cerebral theatre that makes for a highly entertaining evening and another feather in the Courtyard‘s Cap."
Dale Maitland Cartwright.

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