The project is an immersive experience where Brook breathes new life into the rooms at the Casa, creating a sort of diary in the process. The several rooms, we will find, are a metaphor of the life of the artist and her family. Each contains images, objects, personal memories, visual installations, and sound landscapes to evoke the memory of Brook’s mother, actress Natasha Perry. Eleven new graduates of the local Carlo Goldoni Theatre School take their place inside see-through cabins. From these non-places, the performers can be observed in their most intimate state as they rehearse Chekhov’s dialogues while confronting their feelings. Visitors will also meet the spirit of theatre and of Natasha Perry, played by Geoffrey Carey. The visit culminates in the Seagull’s room, where two young actors play the last scene in Chekhov’s play of the same name. These images will liberate us from the weight of the past and we will feel a door opening on the future.
The experience is quite innovative for the audience, who will feel close to the memories, passion, and dreams of a thespian family as well as the loneliness and solitude, the need to share our lives with others, the artist’s trust towards humanity, and our need for togetherness. Irina Brook dedicated her project to the Japanese phenomenon of hikikomori – youths that withdraw from society and choose extreme degrees of social isolation. The phenomenon is, by the way, not limited to Japan, and its effects are sadly visible in western society, too.