Interview with Christina Skordi
For fifty years, they have shared the same stage, establishing one of the most significant collaborations in the history of Italian theatre.
Sicilians Stefano Randisi and Enzo Vetrano discuss their creative journey and their collaboration with Theodoros Terzopoulos in the iconic “Waiting for Godot,” which was scheduled to be presented at the Nicosia International Festival on October 31 and November 1, but has been postponed.
Your works often revolve around pairs of characters. Is this a structural choice related to your duo?
Stefano: Our productions are born from a shared idea and develop step by step through the dialogue we have cultivated together over the years. This is also why many of our shows center on a pair of characters. It’s as if, by being together on stage, we model our own lives.
Enzo: Since leaving our first group, Daggide, it has felt natural to work as a duo and to favour roles on stage that complement each other. For years, many people asked us when we would finally stage Waiting for Godot. We are happy that it was Terzopoulos who recognized it in us, even without having seen our previous productions.
From the play ‘Waiting for Godot’
How did you work on your on-stage dynamic in the production you are bringing to Cyprus?
Stefano: The stage dynamic in this Waiting for Godot stems from an intuition Maestro Terzopoulos had when he first met us. He immediately said he saw us as perfect for two Beckettian characters. He directed us knowing what we could and should do, as if he had known us forever, and his guidance revealed aspects of ourselves and our relationship that we hadn’t yet discovered.
Enzo: We fully surrendered to the Maestro’s directions, to the suggestions he offered, and to the physical exercises that are part of his method. In this way, we reached the core of our Estragon and Vladimir — who, in the end, are also his.
Tell us about your encounter and collaboration with Theodoros Terzopoulos
Enzo: It was an extraordinary encounter, one that makes you discover new possibilities of being. There is not a nerve in your body that is not touched, engaged, and you experience the joy of feeling emotional states you had never known before. In Waiting for Godot, you are part of an imminent catastrophe, yet you choose to laugh — laugh — behind which you sense a cry, a scream.
Stefano: Waiting for Godot, which for me has the qualities of a work of art, is strongly shaped by Theo’s poetics and aesthetics. Even the acting is taken to the extreme, pushing us to the depths of our inner world to extract its essence, as if we were all living in a nightmare that reveals absolute truths.
It felt like entering a world initially unknown to us, which, without ignoring the emotional difficulties we experienced, gradually became clear. Theo understood our bond, built on tenderness and an indispensable need for one another. For example, he left an opening in the final dialogue of the performance — perhaps a glimmer of hope, or at least a nostalgic acceptance of fate — while the set, in its movement, closes and engulfs us. Thank you again, Maestro.
Your stage presence is at once extraordinarily intense and deeply internal. How do you work with silence as an expressive tool?
Stefano: Silence on stage is never an emptiness — it’s a breath. We love this suspended time, in which communication becomes the transmission of pure emotions. Silence allows thought to expand, or to focus, or to wait. It’s full of inner voices that give meaning to what we see.
Enzo: It also creates a deep connection with the audience, as if you were saying countless words at once, and they were choosing which ones to hear. Through silence, you can communicate thoughts that words cannot express — it’s strange, but with silence, you can no longer hide.
How do you handle the transition from realistic acting to more poetic or ritual moments?
Stefano: In our performances, acting makes no distinction of genre — everything is justified and naturally juxtaposed, through and by means of that truth which Maestro Leo de Berardinis taught us when we worked with him. In his shows, one could move from one register to another — from the tragic to the comic, from the ritual to the popular — without ever losing credibility.
Enzo: Not playing a character, but being it, allows you to move naturally from one register to another. In theatre, the poetic act cannot be constructed abstractly; it is the result of the relationship you have with yourself — a way of looking within.
You always co-direct your shows. How do you divide responsibilities, and what is your process of collaboration with the actors?
Stefano: We have found a balance — a way of being on stage and directing actors with different yet converging voices. Naturally, in the creation of a show, one of us tends to focus more on the technical aspects of the production, while the other may pay closer attention to guiding the actors. However, there is always interchangeability, and both of us participate in every stage of the work.
Enzo: After fifty years of working together, our roles have become complementary: Stefano tends to explain, to make our directorial intentions clear with words, while I act more as an actor, providing an example of how to reach the character through an emotional journey.
How do you manage to balance respect for classical texts (like those of Pirandello) with a contemporary interpretation?
Stefano: All great classical texts, and their authors — whether Shakespeare, Pirandello, Goldoni, or Beckett — speak of life, of individuals, of human passions and fragilities. They explore society, coexistence, rivalry, oppression, and fraternity — themes that are eternal. They are therefore not confined to a specific genre or era; through that truth we spoke of in Leo’s teachings, they become contemporary and accessible to everyone.
Enzo: The greatest respect for the classics is to read them while always seeking to see, and make others see, their connections to the world in which the audience lives — to their reality. Texts that over the years may seem to have revealed all their aspects can still surface new meanings, in light of the times we live in. If great classical texts continue to appear on stage, it means they still speak to us.
How do you perceive the relationship between theatre and the audience today? Do you think contemporary theatre tends to avoid emotion?
Stefano: Unfortunately, the relationship between theatre and the audience today is affected by the distractions of the society we live in. Paradoxically, it is not contemporary theatre that tends to avoid emotion — it is the contemporary audience that often struggles to be moved.
“Emotion” is such a rich word that it can take many forms, and it is strongly connected to one’s own feelings and experiences. One can be moved by an actor’s voice, by music during a scene, by a particular lighting choice, the beauty of a set design — every detail of a performance.
Enzo: The relationship between theatre and the audience is essential for a performance to exist; I do not exist if they do not exist. Those who come to the theatre feel the need to immerse themselves in the dream. What unites us is the joy of us being on stage and them in the audience — that joy moves you on stage and touches you in the auditorium.
Has the audience’s relationship with theatre changed since your beginnings?
Stefano: When we started, theatre was part of everyday life, and there was a much stronger curiosity and need to learn and understand — to understand oneself and the world around us. Today, people are less vigilant, and one must be careful that the audience does not drift away, distracted by other interests that risk leading to the ignorance theatre has sought to combat since its inception.
Enzo: In our early days, audiences at festivals, alternative theatres, and young people seeking a break from traditional forms would fill many spaces dedicated to experimental work. Today, the evolution of the stage allows tradition and contemporary practice to coexist, but this is also a very risky transition. It requires a new kind of exploration, civic engagement, and new languages that also demand maturation from the audience.
Your collaboration began in the 1970s. What brought you together back then, and what keeps your theatrical partnership alive after so many years?
Stefano: In the 1970s, theatrical research was carried out by groups revolving around an idea and a leader who embodied that idea. Enzo was chosen by a Sicilian director who saw in his slender, fragile body a resilience and expressive power that even he had not yet realized he possessed. I joined that group, fascinated and drawn by the possibility theatre offered me to become many different personalities. And so it was — but to achieve it, I had to explore the depths of my being to express myself in a way that was new, authentic, and deeply my own. It was a formative and enlightening experience, which then translated into a way of being on stage that is always different, yet always true to myself. We left that group when we felt ready to follow our own path, a new one, which still unites us artistically today.
Enzo: The enthusiasm still surprises us when we begin a new project, exchanging ideas, emotions, and desires. Meeting a new character, carefully watching it gradually take shape, being moved by a successful moment, frustrated by something that hasn’t yet emerged — it’s like a new birth, a creature that comes into contact with the audience, hoping to be loved, hoping to hear again that wonderful sound of two hands clapping together at the end of your effort.
From the play ‘Waiting for Godot’
What is the foundation of your partnership, and how has it allowed you to evolve artistically?
Stefano: The foundation of our union lies in the shared pleasure and interest in discovering, show after show, performance after performance, that there is always something to engage with, something that broadens the mind. And also in our mutual need for each other, for dialogue and synthesis. Respect for each other’s ideas — always — and for truth, which is the central pillar of our theatre.
Enzo: We have been working together for 50 years, and each of us knows the other in every tiny detail: strengths, weaknesses, difficulties. When one of us cannot find a solution, the other does. The creative difference between us is essential — if we were the same, one director would be enough. It is the constant dialogue that has made us grow.
What do you seek to explore through theatre?
Stefano: Ourselves, and how we can enter other lives to explore them as well. We often go to see other people’s shows, to continue learning, and to seek new stimuli and new ways of being on stage.
Enzo: Studying oneself is not enough in a single lifetime; in theatre, you continue to delve into the countless facets of existence. Each time it’s as if you enter a house, a room that was close to you but you had forgotten to explore. And to always be amazed like children, in search of the wonder that is rare in life but that theatre allows you to find.
You often work on texts by authors such as Pirandello, Scaldati, and Beckett. What do you find in common among such diverse voices?
Stefano: In these three authors, we find a search for a language that is ironic at times, absurd at times, poetic at times, and sometimes of crystalline logic, all in the pursuit of truth — all possible truths. Scaldati and Beckett are very similar expressively: both make their characters live within a dream, constructing a metaphor of life that liberates the absurd, the visionary, and the poetic. Pirandello has characters/masks in his texts who move from an apparent logical normality to a dreamlike, paradoxical dimension, ultimately leading us to the same questions: does truth exist? And what is it?
Enzo: All three speak of suspended worlds, the madness of society, a looming threat over the lives of their characters, and therefore over ours. They deal with the struggle against conventions and go beyond tradition, experimenting with new languages. Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot in French to achieve essentiality in writing; Scaldati used dialect innovatively to break patterns and reach truth through poetry; Pirandello dismantled the conventions and hypocrisies of his time. We could call them three rebels against conformity, who studied the human soul under a microscope — and in whose work anyone can recognize themselves.
You are also involved in theatre training. How do you see today’s young actors? What do you think they lack, and what impresses you positively?
Stefano: Young actors today are not a single category; each has their own way and their own level of maturity, which helps us evaluate them. Everyone lacks something, and everyone has qualities that impress positively. They are like us.
Enzo: Overall, we find many young actors more prepared than in the past, ready to listen and to give themselves generously. They have the advantage of being able to approach different masters, study new acting methods, and learn new techniques. They often work as individuals, whereas in our training we acted in groups, feeling more protected — and it takes a lot of courage in the times we are living in now.
What did Leo de Berardinis teach you?
Stefano: The legacy Leo left us is the truth and the necessity of every word, every gesture, every movement on stage. And then coherence, even when abruptly shifting from one level of communication to another, even when, in the middle of a whispered poetic line, the veil of the fourth wall is torn apart by a desperate scream.
Enzo: A profound idea: To be, not to do. Become the character you play; do not try to imitate it. Always be credible, even when portraying surreal or grotesque figures that seem far from reality. And then the immersion in the dream, where anything can happen, blending the high and the low, the popular and the refined.
What role do you think an independent theatre company like yours can have today in the Italian cultural landscape, or more generally?
Stefano: An independent theatre company like ours, always at risk of survival, represents an example of freedom and courage — qualities essential to both theatre and life.
Enzo: Our freedom is a great privilege, allowing us to cultivate a craft in continuous exploration, without commercial constraints. But it is increasingly difficult for new generations, because today companies like ours would face obstacles and restrictions from those who, holding the power to shape the fate of theatre, reject research as a dangerous, revolutionary act.
How do you conceive the continuity of your work? Would you like someone to inherit your aesthetic or your method?
Stefano: It is a goal we feel and enjoy recognizing and encouraging in those who approach our theatre, and it involves emotion and sharing. Right now, with the group of young actors performing with us in Waiting for Godot, we are also working on Büchner’s Woyzeck, and it is a wonderful experience that becomes a mutual gift.
Enzo: For several years now, what we have sought is precisely a dialogue with new generations. We offer our techniques, emotions, and poetry; in return, they give us their energy and inspire us toward new challenges.
