Amore

How do you bring something as delicate and all-encompassing as Love to the theatre? Pippo Delbono makes a brave attempt in Amore. He uses Portugal as his starting point for this effort: a country steeped in imagery of intense melancholy. A country that carries a subtle softness in its language and music, which you can’t help but understand as a form of respect for the frightful feeling that love can be.
 
Delbono is horrified at the reigning approach to the coronavirus pandemic, which swept away the most intimate and personal moments. Case numbers seemed more important than the depths of despair: so many people had to make their final journey alone, without the arms of their loved ones around them, without the warm embrace of love. In Amore, the director tries to name love once again, to dreamily call it back and reinstate its rightful place in our discourse. 
 
“After all that has happened, let us start again from here, from this constant state of research, and let us continue with more Love. Without it, we will be back to square one, and this horrific time will have taught us nothing. Let us instead return to our lives with a renewed consciousness. Let us return to a time when the word had its own meaning, to a moment and a place when we loved one another, and let us talk of Love with the nostalgia of fado – all to chase away the overpowering presence of death.” – Pippo Delbono
 
Pippo Delbono gathered together his trusty group of travel companions again for Amore, but he also invited them to encounters with others in Portugal. He introduces them and you to these crossroads of traditions, cross-pollinations, the ultimate place for métissage, filled with hospitality and openness.