Peak Performances Premieres DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

Peak Performances continues a season of iconoclastic works with the U.S. premiere of Romeo Castellucci's Democracy in America, freely inspired by the writing of Alexis de Tocqueville (May 9-12). In a moment where the words "democracy in America" themselves read as a question, the firebrand director looks back on Tocqueville's canonized impressions of America's sociopolitical structure, and the potential, vulnerabilities, flaws, and dangers embedded in its roots. Employing the "sophisticated visuals, often deafening soundscapes, and daring directorial coups" (The New York Times) for which he's been hailed, Castellucci's explosive return to Peak Performances transposes painful, profound ideas into an arresting work of art.

Propelled more by movement, sound, and light than traditional theatrical text, Castellucci's deconstruction of Tocqueville's ideas are expressed within a narrative that evokes Greek tragedy, a nod to a form that arose alongside the first recorded democracy. Its loose story, performed by an all-female cast, centers around the Puritan farmer couple, Elizabeth and Nathaniel; when Elizabeth makes a shattering decision in order to ensure their survival, she experiences a lapse in faith and extreme alienation from her community. In this visceral, ritualistic vision, the director conjures majorettes who stir the crowd's enthusiasm for democracy in America, colonial settlers who confound Native Americans, and the Puritan couple, driven to desperation as they struggle to farm the land.

Democracy in America asks us to consider the empty promises of a political system steeped in Biblical egalitarianism rather than the concept of tragedy so essential to ancient Greek democracy; the dangers of majority rule; and the inherent violence that springs from religious puritanism and territorial conquests that subjugate whole groups in service of another's God.

Jedediah Wheeler, Artistic Director of Peak Performances and Executive Director of Arts + Cultural Programming at Montclair State University,says, "Romeo Castellucci is celebrated for theater and opera productions that are as visually provocative as they are controversial. In his longtime association with Peak Performances, he has electrified audiences with Go Down, Moses; Hey Girl; On the Concept of the Face, Regarding the Son of God; and Dante's Inferno. Democracy in America will challenge cultural correctness and inspire fresh consideration of our current political maelstrom. Expect no less from Romeo Castellucci."

Performance Schedule and Ticketing

Performances of Democracy in America will take place Thursday, May 9 and Friday, May 10 at 7:30 pm, Saturday, May 11 at 8pm, and Sunday, May 12 at 3pm at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ). Immediately following the performance on Saturday, May 11, the audience is invited to join director Romeo Castelluccito share reflections and responses.

Tickets are affordably priced at $30, and can be purchased at www.peakperfs.org or 973.655.5112. Tickets are always free for Montclair State students.

About Romeo Castellucci

Director and stage, lighting, and costume designer Romeo Castellucci (Cesena, Italy, 1960) is known throughout the world for creating a theatre founded on the totality of the arts and aimed at an integral perception. He has also written various theoretical essays on directing. His theatre engages in a type of dramaturgy that overturns the primacy of literature, thus becoming a complex and supple form of art, a theatre made of extraordinarily rich images expressed in a language as comprehensible as music, sculpture, painting or architecture.

The Societas Raffaello Sanzio, the theatre company he created in 1981, is internationally recognized as one of today's most important for its radical aesthetic stance and the profoundly human nature of its creations. Since 2006, after the eleven performances of the cycle Tragedia Endogonidia, a monumental recapitulation of tragedy in contemporary Europe, Romeo Castellucci has also worked on individual projects. His stagings are regularly invited to and produced by the most prestigious international theatres, opera houses and festivals, in over fifty countries covering all the continents.

Among his most recent creations: Sul concetto di volto nel figlio di Dio (2011), Parsifal by Richard Wagner (2011), The Four Seasons Restaurant (2012), Hyperion based on Friedrich Ho?lderlin (2013), Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph W. Gluck (2014), Neither by Morton Feldman (2014), Go Down, Moses(2014), Le Sacre du Printemps by Igor Stravinsky (2014), Ödipus der Tyrann (2015), Moses und Aronby Arnold Schönberg (2015), The Minister's Black Veil inspired by Hawthorne's parable (2016), Jeanne au bûcher by Arthur Honegger (2017), Democracy in America freely inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville (2017), Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner (2017) and at the Dutch National Opera of Amsterdam Dar Floss der Medusa by Hans Werner Henze (2018).

He has received numerous awards and distinctions. In 1996, he was given the Europa Prize Nuove realtà teatrali, and in 2002 was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture of the French Republic. In 2005, he was appointed director of the theatre section of the Venice Biennale. In 2008, he was named "associated artist" by the artistic committee of the Festival d'Avignon for its 62nd edition. In 2010, Le Monde chose his Trilogy 'Divina Commedia' as best performance, and the only theatrical work included among the most significant cultural events of the decade 2000-2010. In 2013, the Venice Biennale awarded him its prestigious Prize Golden Lion for his career in theatre. In 2014, he received a degree honoris causa from the University of Bologna Alma Mater Studiorum in the disciplines of Music and Theatre. Opernwelt, the leading German periodical in the field of opera, also awarded him its prize for Best Director 2014. The 2014 and 2015 seasons of the Festival d'Automne in Paris, each presenting three of his works as part of the Portrait Biennale, definitively established him as one of the major artists of our time. In 2015 he received the UBU Prize for the best set-design for the production Go Down, Moses.

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