The Life and Death of Pier Paolo Pasolini

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One of the Village Voice’s “Voice Choices,” Week of November 23, 2005

“Pasolini's biographical arc begs the martyred-provocateur treatment à la Larry Flynt, but French playwright Michel Azama delivers something stranger—a chillingly austere account of an inflammatory artist whose life (and death) remain an impenetrable enigma… Director Elizabeth Williamson (who translated the play with Nicholas Elliott) keeps everything brisk and minimal… Azama's anti-dramatic aesthetic hits the jackpot”
--David Ng, Village Voice

“The case of [Pasolini’s] murder has recently been reopened, which sets the stage for the play, written by French playwright Michel Azama and translated wonderfully by Nicholas Elliott and director Elizabeth Williamson... Williamson presents the passionate disputes about Pasolini, his art and ideas, and the case itself in their full moral and factual ambiguity... The story is conveyed through the harsh beauty of the words that etch themselves on the air, a hovering menace that propels the actors' gestures, and the masterful lighting [which] underscores by turns the emptiness and expanse of both the stage and the man”
--William Cordeiro, offoffonline.com

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PIER PAOLO PASOLINI by Michel Azama
US Premiere
Directed by Elizabeth Williamson
Translated by Elizabeth Williamson & Nicholas Elliot
Part of the Act French Festival, supported by Étant-Donnés
Act French
Abingdon Theatre, New York Nov-Dec 2005

Starring Drew Cortese*, with Dan Domingues*, Ian Oldaker*, Arthur Aulisi* & Sandra Shipley* as the Voice of the Judge