conversations in ten questions 67: Floriana Frassetto (Mummenschanz)

What is the essence of theater in your opinion?

I can only speak about the essence of my world. Our essence is to give emotions, playfulness and interactivity to help the audience from 4 to 104, to find their innocent playfulness and imagine and invent. We have 30 little stories in our show, and each one is full of emotions of very different ideas, some contemporary. People all over the world feel these emotions because they are to do with love, with hate, with competition, with jealousy. So, our essence is really to guide the people to that innocent world and imagine.

Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? 

Yes. I mean, I go to a museum and some paintings, sculptures transform something in me for sure. Not that I rush back home and want to copy, but they give me that emotion. They give me that strength to continue my way and maybe to invent something. So I do believe that the arts have a very powerful message that we should listen to, and I believe a lot of people do.

When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works? 

Dreams, reality… Not the news, the news is so ugly and bad that I just feel like closing the door to tell you the truth. But a museum, a walk in nature, a beautiful discussion with a man or a woman, to hear stories, to hear now in Mexico, it's incredible the history they have of the past and you really feel the audience has a culture that comes from the past. They have lived so many things, good and bad, and it's very powerful. So I say very powerful, very powerful and just powerful.

When do you decide to give a title to a work you are working on if it already does not have one? 

You know, we have no titles because we want to remain free so that each one of the audience can put their title if they would like. They are little messages, for instance, there is the 4.56, they are these characters that have these costumes on. They are playing with the phone and not communicating towards one another, unfortunately, in reality it happens and then one comes in with a very big phone and everyone looks because they are jealous, she's got a bigger phone than we have. Then they start transforming the phones into hairpieces, mustaches, mouths, and slowly they start a beat and they start to sing together. So they find themselves through the rhythm. They find themselves communicating again and they forget about the phones. It was a theme that was inspired from when I came back from a long travel of more than 14 hours from Seoul, South Korea, and then I took the train to go home, which was another 3 hours, and there was no one looking at me to say "Lady", because I'm an older lady, "would you like to sit down?" Everyone was busy with their phones and then I said, okay, I'm going to get revenge. I'm going to make a number that criticizes this communication. And with the help of my colleagues who are all very talented and experienced, we do a lot of improvisation and we have built this sketch, which you will see is very strong, very powerful and very funny. So through the fun, there is a critique. I don't like to criticize like this. I think, for that you need words. And in the silence there are the poetic values and there, through the fun, you can criticize much more. I hope it's clear enough for you.

Are there any artist or person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?

Well, in the seventies we were definitely influenced by Oskar Schlemmer and he was part of the Bauhaus. He was a sculptor and architect, and he also did some balletts which were more the man in space. They were not emotional, they were a bit cold, but very interesting. We were definitely fascinated with Oskar Schlemmer and the name Moment Chance, we got it from one of his exhibits, you know, he used to call something big from Experiment Moment Chance and we decided that we would like to have that name.

When you consider the current state of the world in every sense, what is the most important and urgent issue for you as an artist?

To guide the audience into that inner saint playfulness for an hour and a half. I don't change the world, and I don't believe politicians can. But I won't get into this because otherwise I get very upset. So trust me, I just want to throw out our poetic values, bring the audience into a fantasy world, and it helps to relieve who carries the heart.

Your production titled 50 years and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the company brings together different sketches from the foundation’s repertoire; can you tell us a bit more about how this idea for this production developed? 

Well, when we celebrated the 50 years, I did not see myself doing a new show, but just reviving what exists already, and we have more than 109 sketches and I had to choose 30, and trust me, I changed a lot of t-shirts. I was sweating a lot, it was very difficult because, of course I love all of them, but it's fantastic to see some of the sketches. Like the Clay Mask, it is now, the last sketch of the show is so contemporary, it's still so new because the rhythms are very essential. The hard work we do, is to bring everything, every sketch to an essence so it's understood all over the world and it's more touching because then people can put in their imagination. So, yes, there is this sketch called Clay Mask, and it's a beauty competition, one who is very beautiful and the other one (less?) 10.57 beautiful, but he thinks he's the most beautiful. So they compete and by competing, they add materials, big ears and a mustache, horns, and then they transform themselves into a 11.12, into a dog, into a bull. As quick as the words are, people are totally astonished to see this transformation. You know, on top of it, it's 12 kilos on your head, it's on a hockey mask and it's a lot of work. It takes months, if not a year, to learn how to do it. Now our new colleague, Samuel Müller has learned it and he's performing it here in Mexico, taking the place of 11.53 with us in your country. It's wonderful to see the success it still has and it was invented in the 70’s.

Can you also tell us more about the characters you create for your shows such as the air-filled Giants and Clay Masks? How do you develop your objects and masks? 

We started in the seventies with nothing. We had no money and we found objects in the streets or we found objects in a second hand shop, or some friends gave us some objects. They were everyday life objects, of course the toilet paper mask, which is very popular. I thought it was funny the other day. We have these masks, one is eyes, one is nose and mouth and ears. And my colleague enters and he listens to the audience and then he cuts little pieces of toilet paper that he throws into the audience. And a little child said, I use that. It was so cute. Children, I tell you, they are wonderful because they help adults to let loose. Yeah, they are everyday objects that we use differently. This was our theme in the 70’s. It was very important for us to recycle in a way. Some of the plastics that inflate, you will see, one is a big blob-like that rolls into the audience and you have the impression it's going to fall onto a 14.11 row and people are screaming, No, no, don't fall! But of course I see the edge so I can’t fall. I did fall once, but it didn't hurt. 14.21 and then it comes back and then it makes a face, you know? So people are just playing with it. It's wonderful. It's such a surprise, so unexpected. So with these objects, we are performers, all of us, with great character, great personality, so the personalities come through and those personalities, the audience feels immediately.

If you had to translate the production 50 years into a single sentence, what would that sentence be? 

Come and play with us! 

Is there anything you would like to particularly say to the Istanbul audience? 

Yes, I can't wait to come. And I hope we will have nice family audiences, maybe children that are not too small because it might be difficult for them to understand. So I would say from six on.

[The Turkish version of this interview was published in unlimited on October 31st, 2023.]