“You can be anything you want to be, just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be”. You can be anything you want, just transform yourself into whatever you think you can be.
These words, poignant if we consider them contained in one of the symbolic songs of Freddie Mercury’s musical testament – Nodding – can perfectly represent the story told by the musical “We Will Rock You”, a show created on the music of Queen, born in 2002 from the pen of the English playwright Ben Elton with the fundamental participation of Brian May and Roger Taylorguitarist and drummer of the iconic British group.
It’s not a musical about Queen, but their legendary songs are the perfect backdrop to a story that in 2002 described – and still describes – a distant, dystopian future that, frighteningly, in some respects, isn’t that distant after all.
Since 2018, Michaela Berlini, from Rome, one of the few women in the Italian directorial panorama, has been directing this show, having first tiptoed in as an adapter of the text alongside the English director Tim Luscombe until she took total control of the direction.
Having restarted last December, We Will Rock You will be on stage until April 19, where before concluding the season in Milan, it will visit Assisi, Locarno, Bassano del Grappa, Ferrara, Genoa and Bologna.
Micaela, a great musical with one of the most beautiful soundtracks possible
“The show was built around Queen’s songs. Brian May and Roger Taylor lent themselves to adapting their songs, sewing them to perfection on Ben Helton’s story. A story already set at the time in a dystopian future, on what the Internet could have represented at the time. A story that told what would cause the predominance of the network on people’s lives and live music. When I took over the show, we obtained the rights for a “no repeat” version: therefore with the possibility of the director and the creative team to revisit choices such as scenography, choreography and the adaptation of the story to current times”.
Allowing you, edition after edition, to increasingly distinguish your mark
“What we have always done, including this edition, is to remain faithful to the songs, to the tones of Freddie Mercury, to the original notes of the scores provided to us by Queen, but to honor a story so strong that it could be readjusted every time we went on stage”
It is a story that lends itself to many nuances
“Exactly, because the story is the search for the only musical instrument left on the planet, which is no longer Planet Earth but the Planet “Mall” because it has been transformed into a sort of shopping centre, where a single multinational governs the world by centralizing all the know-how, from technology, to schools, to hospitals. It could be said that those in charge have apparently established a certain stability, but a decidedly suffocating stability for all the inhabitants, considered by those in power no longer to be people, but consumers. In this oppressive environment and homogenizing, young and old rediscover an inner fire, people who do not know each other, but who in finding themselves and taking a journey of knowledge and inner conscience together, manage to discover where this unique instrument of freedom and the possibility of expressing themselves is found.”
Lots of nuances and just as many analogies with today’s reality
“Despite being set in a distant future, there is a lot of present; we allow ourselves poetic license so as not to take ourselves too seriously in the moment we are in. Even with irony and lightness, the musical makes us think, it deals with a reality that touches us very closely. Messages exposed delicately, but very effective. Younger kids find themselves in some issues such as bullying, older people read references to current events and politics more.”
Probably not an easy question: is there a song that triggers more emotion in you than the others?
“The honest truth is that it changes every night. I’m passionate about “Play the game” which Killer Queen sings, for its meaning, I love “Somebody to love”, I enjoy the choral moment of “A crazy little thing called love” and, obviously, “Bohemian Rhapsody” proceeded from the final epilogue which continues to unleash the dream in me!”
Your words exude passion and transport, for the music, for the story, for the contents
“I can say that this show makes me extremely proud, for the skill of the performers, for the band that plays strictly live and where the guitarists are two women: Roberta Raschellà and Federica Pellegrinelli. The live band has a huge impact on a dramaturgical level.
This musical does not directly represent Queen, but you can read the relationship existing within the group, the Bohemians, the rebels they were in the early days towards their record company. In the protagonist Galileo we see Freddie, the man of dreams, egocentric and fragile, in Scaramouche we can recognize Brian May, the most critical and well-grounded spirit. Galileo will find the guitar, but it is Scaramouche who will play it, that guitar which is none other than Brian May’s miraculous instrument.
Giving yourself a chance means knowing, it means planning something together, and it’s all there in the title. “We will rock you: only together can things change”.
