Creation. Multimedia Performance
Corto Maltese, Conversation with Irene
A mysterious and poetic fable

Introduction Cynthia Fleury, philosopher, psychoanalyst

Marco Steiner creator

Vincenzo Cascone and Marco Steiner directors
Thierry Thomas consulting director
Marco d’Anna photographer

Giovanni Robustelli designer

Vincenzo Cascone video and multimedia  director
Francesco Cafiso musician (piano, sax, flute)

Marcha Van Boven actress, in the role of “Irene”
Sébastien Schmit actor, in the role of Corto Maltese

Marielle Gonier dancer, in the role of Gold Mouth

Yves Coumans set designer

Corto Maltese, Conversation with Irene is a interdisciplinary and multimedia project conceived by a number of artists who combined their respective disciplines and talents to give new life to the travels of  “Irene of Boston,” a yawl similar to Corto Maltese’s.

The sailboat, built in 1914 in England, sank 100 years later off the Sicilian coast near Pozzallo, which faces the island of Malta.
Corto Maltese, having discovered the wreck, initiates a dreamlike conversation that is full of symbols; the itinerary evoked by the sailboat takes the audience around the world. Slowly, a female character emerges from “Irene of Boston.”
The stories of her travels are metaphors for the human experience. They are about having the courage necessary to overcome fear, or the curiosity necessary to discover and understand different cultures, in a journey that becomes a kind of initiation.
The performance begins with the announcement of the passing of Hugo Pratt. Corto Maltese is experiencing a solitary crisis of disorientation and identity until, via his dialogue with the wreck of the sailboat, he discovers that buried inside it, prisoner of the decaying hull, is the soul of a woman.
The memories of shared adventures, and the dreams, encounters, and intersecting destinies enable Corto to find himself again.