Happy Sisyphus

Everyone has their cross. Except Sisyphus. According to the myth, the gods condemned him to push a boulder that promptly rolls back down the mountain, forcing him to start over: there is no punishment worse than useless and hopeless effort. We are all a bit Sisyphus, and we all share the same secret: deep down, pushing rocks uphill forever kind of pleases us. It gives us a purpose.

Albert Camus wrote that «the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart,» and therefore «one must imagine Sisyphus happy.» But what would we see if we stopped for a moment to look around? What would we say to the other Sisyphuses? And what happens when someone else's boulder falls and rolls toward us?

I want everything or nothing to be explained to me. And reason is powerless in the face of this cry of the heart. The spirit, awakened by this demand, searches and finds only contradictions and irrationalities. What I do not understand is without reason. The world is populated by these irrationals, and itself, whose unique meaning I cannot grasp, is nothing but an immense irrational.

— The Myth of Sisyphus — Albert Camus

After a decade-long career as interpreters of Giorgio Gaber, the company L'intenzione del volo returns to the stage with its first entirely original music theatre show.

Happy Sisyphus is a great journey through the absurdities of our era, between paradoxes of the world and of the soul, dissected and desecrated by Andrea Faccioli accompanied by the mythical piglet Gismondo. He is joined by the music of Davide Villani and Iader Berti, with words by Raffaello Petti. A work that is very funny and a little bit sad, in search of a new happiness.

The show develops through a series of "tableaux," each dedicated to a character with their struggles and absurdities, some comic, others tragic. On stage, the protagonist Andrea Faccioli delivers biting monologues and songs, accompanied by double bassist Iader Berti and guitarist Davide Villani.

After twelve years of activity as interpreters of Giorgio Gaber, L'intenzione del volo brings to the stage an entirely original show that enriches music theatre with a contemporary vision and new melodic references that recall the sounds of Capossela, Guccini and De André.