Short Story of a Double Bass. Personal, passionate and political.

The first time I read this story, quite long ago, it impacted me in a very simple and personal way… Another “out of place” character written by Chekov… I started to imagine it on stage, played by me… I was Pitsikatoff… lost with a continuously changing mission… in an eternal fermata… suspended…carelessly letting my hair grow out... playing my sorrows in a dark forest… under a little bridge.

Through the years, the personal, gave pass to the passionate: I imagined a theatrical and musical environment for the journey of this Quijote called Pitsikatoff … A fantastic, magical world of fairy-tales with songs, inspired by Robert Wilson’s possible worlds and Tom Waits’ guts musicality. Contradictory passions for my contradictory ‘metier’, as well as my contradictory life.

Then the third ‘P’, political happened, questioning how sometimes society makes it difficult for us to find our place, our role as men and as individuals in this contemporary world. We become victims of Political and social changes, as do many of Chekov’s characters. Also, following this line of thought, I decided to create a different journey for the female character of this short story.

All these processes found a big push when the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj offered me the opportunity of making all these reflexions and dreams real. Today, being personal, passionate and political, we gave another little push to this simple short story of a Double Bass. A step based on the great complicity born, after all these years, between this generous Hungarian family and this Quijote, me, with my eternal fermata.

Happy to share this journey with you, please, feel free not to find your place!

Paco Alfonsín