Romeo Castellucci Go down, Moses

[Theatre]

Romeo Castellucci has always been inhabited by Moses, and by the journey, role and visions of this “pillar of our culture”. Carried along by the Tablets of Stone, the prophet was one of the recurring figures in Tragedia Endogonidia. In Go down, Moses, his character goes, to a certain extent, behind the scenes of the episodes of his life. These episodes, projected into the present day, pave the way for the director’s investigation into the archeology of shapes and their lastingness. He reflects upon the abandonment of Moses, as a baby, along the Nile, the mystery of the burning bush, the forty days he spent on Mt. Sinai and descent with the Tablets of Stone. The director does not touch upon them in any chronological order, but through going back and forwards in time and taking unexpected detours, via intentionally “non-decodable” scenes. Romeo Castellucci continues his investigations into the power of the image through the opposition between two images: the golden calf and the burning bush, “this fire which burns without burning anything, with no object”. Thus, what we have is two sides of the same coin, and two opposing cults or cultures. On one side we have its weight in gold and consumption, and on the other, spirituality and consummation. Of course, Go down, Moses is also a reference to the familiar negro spiritual, and to a time when Afro-American slaves dreamt of their emancipation, a sort of second exodus from Egypt. As the director himself says, it is to our humble selves - “exiled from our own being” - that the divine injunctions to Moses are in fact addressed.